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[May, 1859.] 



JOHN BROWN 

Liberator of Kansas and Martyr 
of Virginia 

LIFE AND LETTERS 



EDITED BY 

F. B. SANBORN 




Fourth Edition 



CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA 
THE TORCH PRESS 

1910 



Copyright 1885 by F. B. SANBORN 



Copyright 1910 by THE TORCH PRESS 
\ 






University 'Press: 

JOHN WILSON AND SON 

Cambridge 



©CLA271GG0 



Life of Dr. S. G. Howe. In the Series of "American Re- 
formers." pp. viii, 370. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 
1891. 

New Connecticut. An Autobiographical Poem by A. Bronson 
Alcott. Edited by F. B. Sanborn, pp. xxvi, 247. Bos- 
ton : Little, Brown & Co. 1887. 

The Life and Genius of Goethe. Lectures at the Concord 
School of Philosophy, pp. xxv, 454. Boston : Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 1886. (Out of print). 

The Genius and Character of Emerson. Lectures at the 
Concord School of Philosophy, pp. xxii, 447. Boston: 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1885. 

Henry David Thoreau. In the Series of "American Men 
of Letters." pp. viii, 317. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co. 1882. 

In addition to the above works Mr. Sanborn has edited:— 

Sonnets and Canzonets. By A. Bronson Alcott. With an 
Introduction by F. B. Sanborn, pp. iv, 151. Boston: 
Little, Brown & Co. 1882. 

Anti-Slavery Speeches and Letters of Theodore Parker. 
Boston, 1910 (shortly). 

Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist. By W. E. Channing. Bos- 
ton : C. E. Goodspeed. 1903. 

The Service. By H. D. Thoreau. Boston : C. E. Goodspeed. 
1902. 

Poems of Sixty-five Years. By Ellery Channing. Boston : 
C. E. Goodspeed. 1902. 

Prayers by Theodore Parker. A New Edition, with a Pre- 
face by Louisa M. Alcott and a Memoir by F. B. Sanborn, 
pp. xxi, 200. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1882. 



WORKS BY F. B. SANBORN 

Life and Letters of John Brown, of Kansas and Virginia. 

pp. viii, 645. Cedar Rapids, Iowa : The Torch Press, 
1910. 

Recollections of Seventy Years. Vols. I and II, pp. 650. 
Boston: R. G. Badger. 1909. 

Bronson Alcott at Alcott House, England, and Fruitlands, 
New England (1842-1844). Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The 
Torch Press. 1908. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Friends. Cedar Rapids, 
Iowa: The Torch Press. 1908. 

Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau. Edited, with an 
Introduction and Notes, by F. B. Sanborn. (A New Bio- 
graphy), pp. xii, 483. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co 
1906. 

History of New Hampshire. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co. 1904. 

President Langdon. A Biographical Tribute. Boston : C. E. 
Goodspeed. 1904. 

The Personality of Emerson. Boston : C. E. Goodspeed. 
1903. 

The Personality of Thoreau. Boston : C. E. Goodspeed. 
1901. 

Emerson. Cambridge: Small, Maynard & Co. 1900. 

Memoirs of Pliny Earle, M. D. With Selections from his 
Diaries, Letters, and Professional Writings, pp. xvi, 409. 
Boston : Damrell & Upham. 1898. 

Poems of Nature. Selected and Edited by Henry S. Salt and 
F. B. Sanborn, pp. xix, 122. London : John Lane. Bos- 
ton : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1895. 

A. Bronson Alcott, his Life and Philosophy. By F. B. San- 
born and W. T. Harris, pp. vii, 679 (up to p. 543 by F. 
B. Sanborn). Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1893. 



7^ 



TO 

JOHN BEOWN THE YOUNGEE, 

Eldest Son the Martyr; 

TO 

OWEN BEOWN, 

The Last Survivor of the Virginia Boray; 

TO 

E U 1 H THOMPSON, 

Eldest Daughter of John Brown; 

AND TO 

HIS OTHEE CHILDEEN AND DESCENDANTS, 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCEIBED 

BY THE IB FATHER'S FBI END 

F. B. SANBOEN. 
Concord, Mass., May 9, 1885. 



THE TOUCHSTONE. 



A MAN there came, whence none could tell, 
Bearing a touchstone in his hand, 
And tested all things in the land 

By its unerring spell. 

A thousand transformations rose 

From fair to foul, from foul to fair; 
The golden crown he did not spare, 

Nor scorn the beggar 's clothes. 



Of heirloom jewels prized so much, 

Were many changed to chips and clods; 
And even statues of the gods 

Crumbled beneath its touch. 



Then angrily the people cried, 

" The loss outweighs the profit far, — 
Our goods suflSce us as they are, 

We will not have them tried. ' ' 



But since they could not so avail 
To check his unrelenting quest, 
They seized him, saying, ' ' Let him test 

How real is our jail! " 

But though they slew him with the sword, 

And in the fire the touchstone burned. 

Its doings could not be o'erturned, 
Its undoings restored. 

And when to stop all future harm, 
They strewed its ashes to the breeze, 
They little guessed each grain of these 

Conveyed the perfect charm. 

William Allingham. 



INTRODUCTION 



T N that "History of Napoleon I." which he never lived 
to complete, Lanfrey says: " Do not misconstrue 
events ; history is not a school of fatalism, but one long 
plea for the freedom of man." In this pleading chron- 
icle there are few chapters more pathetic than the career 
of my old friend John Brown, which I long since under- 
took to set forth, though strangely delayed in completing 
my task. It was begun in those dismal years when the 
Southern oligarchy and their humble followers at the 
North still controlled our degraded politics; and it has 
been continued through all the vicissitudes, the anxieties, 
and the assured repose of subsequent years. More than 
once in those earlier days recurred to me that gloomy 
magniloquence of the Roman annalist, where Tacitus 
complains that the tyranny of Domitian had suppressed 
the unheralded renown of Agricola; " Patient sufferance 
we showed, no doubt. Our ancestors saw the extreme 
of license, but we of servility; for our inquisitors would 
permit us neither to hear nor to tell, — and we might 
have lost the use of memory along with free speech, if to 
forget had been no harder than to forego praise. Now at 
last the occasion has returned, and we speak out ; . . . but 
few of us are left, survivors of others, and even of our old 
selves, so many years have passed over us in silence, 



vi INTEODUCTION 

bringing the young to old age, and the old to the very- 
sunset of life. ' ' ^ 

Since the printing of these pages began, four months 
ago, two of those who stood with us in the contest against 
slavery have died, — Dr. Cabot, of Boston, and the fam- 
ous Victor Hugo ; and every year removes the actors and 
the witnesses of memorable deeds. I have therefore sought 
to preserve the record of one hero 's life, in his own words 
(when I could), and in the contemporary evidence of 
those who saw and bore witness to what he did, — 
mingling myself with the account as little as possible, 
except for attestation and comment, when doubt might 
else arise. The plan was at first to print all the extant 
letters of Brown, which I fancied would easily find 
place in a volume of four hundred pages ; but I have in 
my hands letters enougli to fill another book, and have 
not been able to use them. Those selected, however, ex- 
hibit his life sufficiently ; it was straightforward and all 
of a piece, so that even the details which are here given 
may seem tedious to some readers. In the second vol- 
ume, should I live to publish it, on " The Companions 
of John Brown," I may carry the story further, and 
complete the record of a remarkable episode in Amer- 
ican history. I have aimed at accuracy, but of course 
have not always succeeded; and have necessarily omit- 
ted much that other writers will supply. My intention 
has been to put the reader in possession of evidence 
which either verifies itself or can readily be verified by 



1 Dediinus profecto grande patientia^ dociimentum ; et sieut vetus jetas 
vidit quid ultimum in libertate esset, ita nos quid in servitude, — adempto 
per inquisitiones etiam loquendi audiendique commercio. Memoriam quoque 
ipsam cum voce perdidissemus, si tarn in nostra potestate esset oblivisci 
quam tacere. Nunc demun redit animus, . . . pauci, ut ita dixerim, 
non modo aliorum, sed etiam nostri superstites sumus, excmptis e media 
vita tot annis, quibus juvenes ad sene-tnt'>m, sen?s prope ad ipsos a>tatis 
terminos per silentiam venimus. — Tacitus, Agricola, ii. 



INTRODUCTION vii 

a little research. Holding the key to much that has 
heretofore been obscure or ill related, I have furnished 
the true connection between events and persons where, 
in some cases, this had escaped notice. I shall gladly 
receive any correction of mistakes, but shall not pay 
much regard to inferential and distorted statements 
which traverse my own clear recollections, — supported, 
as these often are, by written evidence which I have not 
here printed, but hold in reserve. 

I could not have completed this task of nearly thirty 
years but for the constant and friendly aid of the family 
of John Brown, who have placed without reserve their 
papers in my hands. I have had also the co-operation 
of Colonel Higginson, Edwin Morton, Mrs. Stearns, 
Lewis Hayden, Thomas Thomas, and other friends 
among the living; and of the late Dr. Howe, Wendell 
Phillips, George L. Stearns, F. J. Merriam, Osborn An- 
derson, and many more, who are now dead. To all these, 
named and unnamed, I would here return my acknow- 
ledgments. Particularly, I must thank those gentlemen 
of Kansas, my college friend and brother journalist Mr. 
D. W. Wilder, and Mr. F. G. Adams of the Kansas His- 
torical Society, who by their accurate knowledge of 
Kansas history and topography, and the free access 
they have given me to important papers, have made it 
possible for me to write the chapters that concern their 
State. I am also indebted to Mr. James Redpath, Mr. 
Richard Hinton, Mr. Frederick Douglass, Mr. W. S. 
Kennedy, and to many correspondents and admirers of 
John Brown whose names are mentioned in the pages 
that follow. I might include in this acknowledgment a 
few malicious slanderers and misjudging censors of 
Brown, who by their publications have caused the whole 
truth to l)e more carefully searched out. 



Viii INTRODUCTION 

I cannot hope that all my readers will take the same 
view of Brown that I do ; but I assure them, from long 
acquaintance with his character, that the more they know 
it the more they will honor it. As for the conspiracy in 
which he lost his life, should any imagined regard for 
the reputation of persons living or dead tempt kinsmen 
or friends to disown the share of any man in this affair, 
let them remember what Sir Kenelm Digby says of his 
father. " All men know," pleads the fair Stelliana, 
" that it was no malitious intent or ambitious desires 
that brought Sir Everard Digby into that conspiracy, 
but his too inviolable faith to his friend that had trusted 
him with so dangerous a secret, and his zeal to his coun- 
try's antient liberties." 

V. B. S. 

Concord, June 2, 1885. 



PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

Since the above was written, Owen Brown has died 
in California (1888), Lewis Hayden in Boston (1889), 
and James Redpath in New York (1891). There is now 
no survivor, so far as I know, of John Brown's Com- 
pany at Harper's Ferry; and few of those now living 
can testify of their own knowledge to the early-formed 
plans of Brown for attacking slavery by force. A con- 
troversial writer in the " Andover Review " has lately 
questioned the exactness of my statement on this point ; 
but he has since confessed himself satisfied, by the em- 
phatic testimony of John Brown, Jr. Many interesting 
facts have come to light since 1885, but none requiring 

any material correction of this book. 

F. B. S. 
Concord, March 2, 1891. 



INTRODUCTION ix 

PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 

In this edition, published in Iowa, that young State 
in 1856, which aided so gallantly through its governor, 
James Wilson Grimes (a New Hampshire law-student 
with my father-in-law, James Walker), its Iowa City 
committee-man, W. P. Clarke, and many less known 
men, in the preservation of Kansas to free institutions, 
I owe it to that now powerful Commonwealth to record 
Brown's indebtedness to her good people. Among the 
Calvinists of Grinnell, and the Quakers of Springdale 
he and his f reedmen, emancipated by force, — a business 
in which Uncle Sam engaged on a grand scale three 
years later, — were received with noble hospitality. Two 
lowans in 1859, brothers named Gue, one of whom was 
afterwards lieutenant-governor of the State, having 
learned of Brown's desperate plan for invading Vir- 
ginia, gave notice of it to the Virginian war-secretary 
of Buchanan, from a mistaken sense of duty to their 
friends the Coppocs, in a letter whose authorship was in 
doubt until one of the brothers avowed it, long after- 
ward. This is the letter mentioned on pages 543-44, and 
there tentatively ascribed to a Hungarian refugee in 
Kansas, through a Cincinnati reporter, which is now 
known not to be true. Providence took care that this 
well-meant betrayal from Iowa should not take effect. 
So confident were the slave-masters in their assured con- 
trol of the country in 1859, that they took no account of 
this warning letter, and in Carolina went on with their 
revival of the slave-trade. 

The conduct of Brown in Kansas, aided from Iowa 
both in 1856 and the years following, has been much 
investigated since this book was first published in 1885. 
Slanders and suspicions, grossly unfounded and actu- 
ally impossible of verification, have been printed in 
Kansas, in New York, in Boston and elsewhere. One of 



■^ 



X INTEODUCTION 

these villifications alleged that Brown was not concerned 
in the defence of Lawrence, against its third attack by 
the Missourian invaders in September, 1856, and did 
not make the speech reported on page 335. The re- 
searches of that precise historian, Mr. William Elsey 
Connelley of Topeka, have brought to light the evidence 
of several men still living who heard and vouch for this 
speech ; and I give below in f ac-simile Brown 's own 
written account of his participation in this affair. It is 
always safe to say that any fight which Brown saw, he 
took part in. 

A T M^ '-^v/o-^^otfC ^ /iv^-o^^ {Qu^-n^.t.^ ■^t.^.yJkJ^ i- 'lAmLL- Ajl. h* 

Other slanders upon Brown's conduct and motives 
have been refuted, by me and many others, in the pub- 
lished Proceedings of the Kansas Historical Society and 
the Massachusetts Historical Society, in recent years. 
My Recollections of S'cventy Years, published last year 
in Boston by R. G. Badger, contains in its first volume 
other refutations, and much elucidation of the enter- 
prises of Brown, whether in Kansas, Missouri, Mary- 
land or Virginia. New lives of Brown, containing much 
fact and some fiction, have been printed and will be 
printed hereafter. It does not become an author to say 
much in praise of his own book; but this ought to be 



INTEODUCTION xi 

said of mine : It contains as least 200 pages, of its 650, 
which were never printed before I made them public, 
copyrighted them, and thus made every future biog- 
rapher dependent on my book for indispensable facts 
about Brown. X am now one of the few living witnesses 
to the career and character of John Brown ; whom I 
knew intimately, and of whom my high opinion was 
formed fifty-three years ago, and has only been height- 
ened by all I have seen and learned of him since. 

P. B. S. 
Concord, February 22, 1910. 



TO JOHN BROWN.i 
I. 

Marble nor brass, nor granite from the shore 

Which thy grave fathers trod with ])ilgrim feet, 
Thy fame shall never need; the hollow roar 

Of Time's vast ocean will thy name repeat, 
When we and all our works are buried low 

Under the whelming of his restless tide. 
In generous hearts thy praise shall ever glow 

With theirs that earlier for sweet Freedom died. 
Leonidas claims kindred with thy line, 

Rome's firmest rooted courage thou liast shared; 
Not Sempach saw a nobler deed than thine, 

When Winkelried his high achievement dared! 
Nay, who sad Afric's kneeling race shall blame. 

Blending with thine Judea's holiest name? 

II. 

Yet must we give what thou so well couldst spare, 

Thine earnest features carved in whitest stone, — 
Best symbol of a life as firm and fair, — 

Shall grace this house, to thee so friendly known. 
Here didst thou turn aside, a pilgrim gray; 

Here didst thou lay that heavy burden down ; 
Here slept in peace, and with the breaking day 

Departed hence to win thy noblest crown. 
Now, while the opening year leads Freedom in. 

And war's wild earthquake bursts the prison gate, 
Our hearts, atoning for a nation's sin. 

Give earnest of the honors that await. 
And thou, blest Spirit! from thy calm retreat. 

Give us Godspeed, and New Year's welcome sweet. 

F. B. Sanborn. 
Concord, Jan. 1, 1863. 

1 These sonnets were read by Wendell Phillips at the house of Mr. 
Stearns, in Medford, when the marble bust of Brown was unveiled, Eman- 
cipation Day, Jan. 1, 1863. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Ancestry and Childhood 1 

II. Youth and Early Manhood 31 

III. John Brown as a Business Man ... 54 

IV. Pioneer Life in the Adirondacs .... 90 
V. Preparations for the Conflict . . , .116 

VI. Family Counsels and Home Life . . . 139 

VII. Kansas, the Skirmish-Ground of the 

Civil War 160 

VIII. The Brown Family in Kansas 187 

IX. The Pottawatomie Executions .... 247 

X. The Kansas Struggle Continued . . . 283 

XL John Brown and the Kansas Committees . 344 

XII. The Plans Disclosed 418 

XIII. From Canada, through Kansas, to Canada 469 

XIV. John Brown and his Friends .... 495 

XV. The Foray in Virginia 519 

XVI. John Brown in Prison 576 

XVII. The Death and Character of John Brown 621 

Index 633 



THE 
LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 

"\X/'HEN a man of mark is to appear in the world and 
give a new turn to the affairs of men, there has 
always been preparation made for him. Even the weeds 
and vermin of the field have their heredity and evolu- 
tion, — much more a predestined hero like John Brown, 
of Kansas and Virginia. His valor, his religion, his 
Saxon sense, his Calvinistic fanatacism, his tender and 
generous heart were inherited from a long line of Eng- 
lish, Dutch, and American ancestors, — men and women 
neither famous nor powerful, nor rich, but devout, aus- 
tere, and faithful ; above all free, and resolved that others 
should be free like themselves. 

No genealogist has yet traced the English forefathers 
of Peter Brown the carpenter, who came over in the 
" Mayflower," and landed at Plymouth with the other 
Pilgrims in December, 1620; but his presence in that 
famous band is evidence enough of his character, even if 
the deeds of his descendants had not borne witness to it. 
He drew his house-lot on Leyden Street in the little 
town, with Bradford, Standish, and Winslow, and like 
them soon migrated to Duxbury, at the head of Plymouth 
Bay, where his family dwelt after his early death, in 1633, 
not far from Standish 's abode at the foot of "Captain's 
Hill." A brother of Peter, John Brown, a weaver (some- 
times confounded with a more distinguished John, who 
became a magistrate), also lived at Duxbury, and took 

1 



2 LIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHN BROWN [1620. 

some care of his deceased brother 's four children, — two 
sons and two daughters, — who survived him. Peter 
Brown was unmarried when he landed at Plymouth, but 
within the next thirteen years he was twice married, and 
died, — as we learn from unquestionable authority, the 
" History of Plymouth Plantation," left in manuscript 
by William Bradford, who succeeded Carver in 1621 as 
governor of the colony, and died in 1657, Writing about 
1650, Bradford says: " Peter Brown married twice. By 
his first wife he had two children, who are living, and 
both of them married, and one of them hath two child- 
ren; by his second wife he had two more. He died 
about sixteen years since." It is supposed that his first 
wife was named Martha, and that Mary and Priscilla 
Brown were her daughters, — the two who are mentioned 
by Bradford as married in 1650. In 1644 they were 
placed Avith their uncle John, and in due time received 
each £15, which their father had left them by will. The 
rest of Peter's small estate went to his second wife and 
her two sons, of whom the younger, born in 1632, at 
Duxbury, was the ancestor of the Kansas captain.^ He 
was named Peter for his father, removed from Duxbury 
to Windsor in Connecticut between 1650 and 1658, and 
there married Mary, daughter of Jonathan Gillett, by 
whom he had thirteen children. He died at Windsor, 
March 9, 1692, leaving to his family an estate of £409. 
One of his children, John Brown, born at Windsor, Jan. 
8, 1668, married Elizabeth Loomis in 1691, and had 
eleven children. Among these was John Brown (born in 
1700, and died in 1790), who was the father and the sur- 
vivor of the Revolutionary Captain John Brown, of West 
Simsbury. He lived and died in Windsor, there married 
Mary Eggleston, and Captain John Brown just men- 
tioned, the grandfather of our hero, was his oldest son, 



1 It would be curious to trace the English ancestry of Captain Brown, 
which, some suppose, goes back to that stout-hearted John Brown of Henry 
VIII. 's time, who was one of the victims of Popish persecution in the early 
years of that king. Fox, in his " Book of Martyrs," tells the story of his 
martyrdom at the stake, in the early summer of 1511, at Ashford, where 
he dwelt ; and adds that his son, Richard Brown, was imprisoned for his 
faith in the latter days of Queen Mary, and would have been burned but 
for the proclniming of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558. 



1728.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 3 

born Nov. 4, 1728. He married Hannah Owen, of Welsh 
descent, in 1758, whose father was Elijah Owen, of 
Windsor, and her first ancestor in this country John 
Owen, a Welshman, who married in Windsor in 1650, 
just before young Peter Brown went thither from Dux- 
bury. A few years afterward an Amsterdam tailor, 
Peter Miles or Mills, came to Connecticut from Holland, 
settled in Bloomfield near Windsor, and became the an- 
cestor of John Brown's grandmother, Ruth Mills, of 
West Simsbury. Thus three streams of nationality — 
English, Welsh, and Dutch — united in New England to 
form the parentage of John Brown. His forefathers were 
mostly farmers, and among them was the proper New 
England proportion of ministers, deacons, squires, and 
captains. Both his grandfathers were officers in the Con- 
necticut contingent to Washington's army, and one of 
them, Captain John Brown, died in the service. It is his 
gravestone which the pilgrim to his grandson's grave, in 
the Adirondac woods, sees standing by the great rock 
that marks the spot ; and among the other inscriptions ^ 
which there preserve the memory of his slauglitered de- 
scendants, that of the Revolutionary captain stands first. 
Owen Brown, — ' ' Squire Owen, ' ' — son of this cap- 
tain, and father of the Kansas captain, was named for 

1 These remarkable epitaphs, several of which were written by Joha 

Brown, of Kansas, are as follows: — 

In Born Dec. 31, 1830, and 

Memory of Murdered at Osawatofiiie, 

Capt. John Brown, Kansas, Aug. 30, 1856, 

who Died at For his adherence to 

New York, Sept. ye the cause of freedom. 

3, 1775, in the 48 

year of his age. _- _ 

^ Watson Beown 

Born Oct. 7, 1835, was wounded 

.John Brown at Harper's Ferry, 

Born May 9, 1800 Oct. 17, and Died 

Was executed at Charleston Oct. 19, 1859. 

Va., Dec. 2, 1859. 



Oliver Brown 
In memory of Born May 9, 1839, was 

Frederick, Killed at Harper's Ferry 

Son of John and Dianthe Oct. 17, 1859. 

Brown, 



4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN [1771. 

his mother's family, and was the earliest of these Browns 
who seems to have left any written memoirs. He migrated 
from Connecticut to Ohio, among the first of those who 
settled on the Western Reserve, early in the century, and 
when nearly eighty years old, while living at Hudson, 
Ohio, wrote an autobiography for his children's perusal, 
which gives some characteristic details of the state of so- 
ciety where he lived, and where his renowned son was 
born. 

OWEN BROWN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

" My life has been of little worth, mostly filled up with van- 
ity. I was born at West Simsbury (now Canton), Connecticut, 
Feb. 16, 1771. I have but little recollection of what took place 
until the years '75 and '76. I remember the beginning of war, 
and some things that took place in 1775; but only a little until 
'76, when my father went into the anny.i. He was captain in 
the militia of Connecticut, and died in New York, with the dysen- 
tery, a few weeks after leaving home. My mother had ten child- 
ren at the time of my father 's death, and one born soon after, 
making eleven of us all. The first five were daughters, the oldest 
about eighteen; 2 the next three were sons; then two daughters, 
and the youngest a son. The care and support of this family fell 
mostly on my mother. The laboring men were mostly in the 
army. She was one of the best of mothers, active and sensible. 
She did all that could be expected of a mother ; yet for want of 
help we lost our crops, then our cattle, and so became poor. I 
very well remember the dreadful hard winter of 1778-79. The 
snow began to fall in November, when the water was very low- 
in the streams; and while the snow was very deep, one after an- 
other of our hogs and sheep would get buried up, and we had 
to dig them out. Wood could not be drawn with teams, and 
was brought on men's shoulders, they going on snowshoes until 
paths were made hard enough to draw wood on hand-sleds. The 
snow was said to be five feet deep in the woods. Milling of grain 
could not be had, only by going a great distance; and our family 
were driven to the necessity of pounding corn for food. We lost 
that winter almost all of our cattle, hogs, and sheep, and were 
reduced very low by the spring of 1779. 



1 He entered the army of Washington in the summer of 1776, and died 
shortly before the battle of Long Island, in which his regiment took part. 

2 John Brown married Hannah Owen in 1758, and his eldest daughter 
was but little more than seventeen at his death in 1776. 



1784.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 5 

' ' I lived at home in 1782 ; this was a memorable year, as 
there was a great revival of religion in the town of Canton. My 
mother and my older sisters and brother John dated their hopes 
of salvation from that summer's revival, under the ministry of 
the Rev. Edward Mills. I cannot say as I was a subject of the 
work; but this I can say, that I then began to hear preaching.i 
I can now recollect most, if not all, of those I heard preach, and 
what their texts were. The change in our family was great; 
family worship, set up by brother John, was ever afterward con- 
tinued. There was a revival of singing in Canton, and our family 
became singers. Conference meetings were kept up constantly, 
and singing meetings, — all of which brought our family into a 
very good association, — a very great aid of restraining grace. 

About 1784 the Rev. Jeremiah Hallocks became the min- 
ister at Canton. I used to live with him at different times, 
and received a great deal of good instruction from him. About this 
time I began to make shoes, and worked mostly winters at 
shoemaking, and at farming at home summers. In the winter 
of 1787 I took a trip into Massachusetts, through Granville, 
Otis, and Blandford. In these towns I worked at shoemaking 
over half of the winter. I was but a bungling shoemaker, yet 
gave good satisfaction, was kindly treated as a child, and got 
my pay well, in clothing and money. I then went to Great 
Barrington, Sheffield, and Salisbury. Here I hired out to a very 
good shoemaker, at about half price, with a view of learning 
to be a better workman. I returned home in the spring of 1788 
and worked on the farm through the summer. In 1789 I lived 
at home, but in the fall I went to Norfolk, and worked at shoe- 
making all winter, mostly around at houses for families. 



1 He was then in his twelfth year ; his brother John was, perhaps, 
fifteen or sixteen. This brother was a faithful and honored deacon of 
the church in New Hartford, Conn., for many years. Another brother, 
Frederick, born Aug. 14, 1769, in Canton, Conn., represented the neighbor- 
ing town of Colebrook in the State Legislature during the war of 1813, 
but in 1816 removed to Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio, and assisted in 
founding that town. On the organization of the county, he was chosen 
senior Associate Judge for fourteen years. During this term of office, the 
PresidiPT Judge having a large circuit most of the business in Wadsworth 
came beiore Judge Brown, who gained a high reputation as a magistrate 
and citizen. " He never spoke disparagingly of a neighbor, nor of any 
other church than his own." Two of his sons were physicians of celebrity; 
another a successful minister of the Gospel. 

2 The Hallock family were connected by marriage with the Browns, and 
we shall find them mentioned hereafter, — John Brown having studied for 
a while with the Rev. Moses Hallock. 



6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN [1793. 

" In the spring of 1791 we as a family were rising in the 
gain of property; we had good crops; our stock had increased, 
and we felt able to make a small purchase of land ; our credits 
were good for the payment of debts. In all this, we must ac- 
knowledge the kind providence of God. Our former poverty 
had kept us out of the more loose and vain company, and we 
appeared to be noticed by the better class of people. There 
was a class of young men and ladies that were a little older 
than my brothers, who had rich parents that dressed their fam- 
ilies in gay clothing, giving them plenty of money to spend, and 
good horses to ride. Oh, how enviable they appeared to me, 
while my brothers and sisters lacked all these things! Now, 
while I write, I am thinking what was the change of fifteen or 
twenty years with these smart young folks. I cannot think of 
more than one or two that became even common men of business, 
but a number of them did become poor drunkards, and three 
came to their end by suicide. God knows what is best. 

" In the spring of 1790 I returned and hired out to the Rev. 
Jeremiah Hallock for six months. Here I had good instruc- 
tion and good examples. I was under some conviction of sin, 
but whether I was pardoned or not, God only knows; this I 
know, I have not lived like a Christian. 

" About this time I became more acquainted with Ruth Mills 
(daughter of the Rev. Gideon Mills), who was the choice of my 
affections ever after, although we were not married for more than 
two years. In March, 1793, we began to keep house; and here 
was the beginning of days with me. I think our good minister 
felt all the anxiety of a parent that we should begin right. He 
gave us good counsel, and, I have no doubt, with a praying spirit. 
And I will say, never had any person such an ascendency over my 
conduct as my wife. This she had without the least appearance 
of usurpation or dictation; and if I have been respected in the 
world, I must ascribe it to her influence more than to any one 
thing. We began with very little property, but with industry 
and frugality, which gave us a comfortable support and a small 
increase. We took children to live with us very soon after we 
began to keep house. Our own first child was born at Canton, 
June 29, 1794, — a son, we called Salmon, a thrifty forward 
child. 

" We lived in Canton about two years, I working at shoe- 
making, tanning, and farming; we made butter and cheese on 
a small scale, and all our labors turned to good account; we 
were at peace with all our neighbors, and had great cause for 
thanksgiving. We were living in a rented house, and I felt 
called to build or move. I thought of the latter, and went di- 
rectly to Norfolk, as I was there acquainted, and my wife had 
taught school there one summer. The people of Norfolk encour- 




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1804.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 7 

aged me, and I bought a small farm with a house and barn on it. 
I then sold what little I had, and made a very sudden move to 
Norfolk. We found friends in deed and in need. I there set up 
shoemaking and tanning, employed a foreman, did a small good 
business, and gave good satisfaction. 

" Feb. 18, 1796, my little son Salmon died. This was a 
great trial to us. In the spring of 1796 my business was 
much increased, but owing to sickness of wife and self I could 
not get but a small part of the leather out in the fall. The 
people became somewhat dissatisfied with me, and things went 
hard that winter; but when spring returned, my leather came out 
well, and from that time I gave good satisfaction to the people, 
as far as I knew. July 5, 1798, my daughter Anna was born in 
Norfolk. Soon after this, my wife and I made a public profes- 
sion of religion which I have so poorly manifested in my life. 

" In February, 1799, I had an opportunity to sell my place 
in Norfolk, which I did without any consultation of our neigh- 
bors, who thought they had some claim on my future services as 
they had been very kind and helped; and they questioned whether 
I had not been hasty. But I went as hastily to Torrington and 
bought a place, although I had but little acquaintance there. I 
was quick on the move, and we found there good neighbors, and 
were somewhat prosperous in business. In 1800, May 9, John was 
born, one hundred years after his great grandfather; nothing 
else very uncommon. We lived in peace with all men, so far as 
I know. (I might have said the years of '98 and '99 were 
memorable years of revivals of religion in the churches of our 
town and the towns about us. Perhaps there has never been so 
general a revival since the days of Edwards and Whitfield.) 
April 30, 1802, my second son Salmon was born. 

" In 1804 I made my first journey to Ohio. I left home on the 
8th of August, came through Pennsylvania and saw many new 
things. Arrived in Hudson about the 1st of September; found 
the people very harmonious and middling prosperous, and mostly 
united in religious sentiments. I made a small purchase of land 
at the center of Hudson, with the design of coming at a future 
day. I went to Austinburg, and was there taken sick, which 
proved to be the fever and ague; was there a month, very sick 
and homesick. I started for home against counsel, and had a 
very hard journey, — ague almost every day or night, — but ar- 
rived home on the 16th of October. I had the ague from time to 
time over one year; yet my determination to come to Ohio was 
so strong that I started with my family in company with Ben- 
jamin Whedon, Esq , and his family, on the 9th of June, 1805. 
We came with ox teams through Pennsylvania and I found Mr. 
Whedon a very kind and helpful companion on the road. 



8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN [1808. 

" We arrived in Hudson on the 27th of July, and were 
received with many tokens of kindness. We did not come to a 
land of idleness; neither did I expect it. Our ways were as 
prosperous as we had reason to expect. I came with a determina- 
to help build up and be a help, in the support of religion 
and civil order. We had some hardships to undergo, but they 
appear greater in history than they were in reality. I was often 
called to go into the woods to make division of lands, sometimes 
sixty or seventy miles from home, and be gone some weeks, sleep- 
ing on the ground, and that without serious injury. 

" When we came to Ohio the Indians were more numerous than 
the white people, but were very friendly, and I believe were a 
benefit rather than an injury. In those days there were some that 
seemed disposed to quarrel with the Indians, but I never had 
those feelings. They brought us venison, turkeys, fish, and the 
like; sometimes they wanted bread or meal more than they could 
pay for at the time, but were always faithful to pay their debts. 
In September, 1806, there was a difficulty between two tribes; 
the tribe on the Cuyahoga River came to Hudson, and asked for 
assistance to build them a log-house that would be a kind of fort 
to shelter their women and children from the firearms of their 
enemy. Most of our men went with teams, and chopped, drew, 
and carried logs, and put up a house in one day, for which they 
appeared very grateful. They were our neighbors until 1812, but 
when the war commenced with the British, the Indians left these 
parts mostly, and rather against my wishes. 

" In Hudson my business went on very well, and we were some 
prosperous in most of our affairs. The company that we 
received being of the best kind, the missionaries of the gospel and 
leading men travelling through the country called on us, and I 
became acquainted with the business people and ministers in all 
parts of the Western Reserve, and some in Pennsylvania. In 1807 
(Feb. 13) Frederick, my sixth child, was bom. I do not think of 
anything else to notice but the common blessings of health, peace, 
and prosperity, for which I would ever acknowledge the goodness 
of God with thanksgiving. I had a very pleasant orderly fam- 
ily until Dec. 9, 1808, whn all my earthly prospects seemed to 
be blasted. My beloved wife gave birth to an infant daughter 
who died in a few hours; as my wife expressed it, ' She had a 
short passage through time. ' My wife followed a few hours after. 
These were days of affliction. I was left with five small children 
(six, including Levi Blakesly, my adopted son), the eldest but 
about ten and a half years old. The remembrance of this scene 
makes my heart bleed now. These were the first that were buried 
in the ground now occupied as a cemetery at the centre of Hud- 
son. I kept my children mostly around me, and married my sec- 



1812.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD 9 

ond wife, Sally Root, Nov. 8, 1809. Through all these changes 
I experienced much of the goodness of God in the enjoyment of 
health in myself and family and general prosperity in my busi- 
ness. April 19, 1811, Sally Marian was born. 

" In July, 1812, the war with England began; and this war 
called loudly for action, liberality, and courage. This was the 
most active part of my life. We were then on the frontier, and 
the people were much alarmed, particularly after the surrender of 
General Hull at Detroit. Our cattle, horses, and provisions were 
all wanted. Sick soldiers were returning, and needed all the as- 
sistance that could be given them. There was great sickness in 
different camps, and the travel was mostly through Hudson, which 
brought sickness into our families. By the first of 1813 there 
was great mortality in Hudson. My family were sick, but we 
had no deaths. July 22, 1813, Watson Hughs, my seventh son was 
born ; he was a very thrifty promising child. We were mostly 
under the smiles of a kind providence. Florilla, my fourth daugh- 
ter, was born May 19, 1816. From this time I had many calls 
from home, and was called to fill some places of trust which others 
were more capable of filling. I now believe it was an injury to my 
family for me to be away from them so much; and here I would 
say that the care of our own families is the pleasantest and most 
useful business we can be in. Jeremiah Root, my eighth son, was 
born Nov. 8, 1819, and Edward my ninth son, July 13, 1823. 

' ' Nothing very uncommon in this period, save that there was a 
change in general business matters. Money became scarce, prop- 
erty fell, and that which I thought well bought would not bring 
its cost. I had made three or four large purchases in which I was 
a heavy loser. I can say the loss or gain of property in a chort 
time appears of but little consequence; they are momentary things, 
and will look very small in eternity. Job left us a good example. 
About this time my son Salmon was studying law at Pittsburgh. 
I had great anxiety and many fears on his account. Sept. 21, 
1825, Martha, our fifth daughter, was born; Sept. 18, 1826, she 
died from whooping-cough. Lucian, my tenth son, was born Sept. 
18, 1829. Here I will say my earthly cares were too many for the 
good of my family and for my own comfort in religion. I look 
back upon my life with but little satisfaction, but must pray, 
' Lord, forgive me for Christ 's sake, or I must perish. ' Jan. 29, 
1832, my son Watson died, making a great breach in my family. 
He had not given evidence in health of being a Christian, but was 
in great anxiety of mind in his sickness; we sometimes hope he 
died in Christ. Martha, my sixth daughter, was born June 18, 
1832 ; and Sept. 6, 1833, Salmon, my third son, died in New Or- 
leans with yellow fever. He was a lawyer and editor of a French 
and English newspaper called the ' New Orleans Bee ' ; was of 



10 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN [1800. 



some note as a gentleman but I never knew that he gave evidence 
of being a Christian. Aug. 11, 1840, my second wife died with con- 
sumption, which she had be«n declining under for a long time. I 
think she died a Christian. Here my old wounds were broken 
open anew, and I had great trials. 

" Some little time before this there had been great speculation 
in village lots, and I had suffered my name to be used as security 
at the banks. My property was in jeopardy; I expected all to be 
lost. I had some to pity me, but very few to help me ; so I learned 
that outward friendship and property are almost inseparably con- 
nected. There were many to inform me that I had brought my 
troubles upon myself. April 1841, I was married to the Widow 
Lucy Hinsdale. My worldly burdens rather increased, but I bore 
them with much patience. April, 1843: about this time my fam- 
ily had so scattered — some by marriage and other ways — that I 
thought best to leave my favorite house and farm, and to build 
new at the centre of Hudson. 

... I have great reason to mourn my unfaithfulness to my 
children. I have been much perplexed by the loss of property, and 
a long tedious lawsuit ; while my health has been remarkably good 
for one of my age, and I have great reason for thanksgiving." 

This artless narrative, written by Owen Brown at the 
age of seventy-eight, discloses his character, and sketches 
in some manner the conditions of life under which John 
Brown was born and bred. But another paper from the 
same hand shows how naturally the son inherited from 
his Connecticut ancestors his hatred of slavery. Owen 
Brown thus described, about 1850, some events of which 
he had been cognizant sixty or seventy years earlier : — 

' ' I am an Abolitionist. I know we are not loved by many ; 
I have no confession to make for being one, yet I wish to tell 
how long I have been one, and how I became so. I have no 
hatred to negroes. When a child four or five years old, one 
of our nearest neighbors had a slave that was brought from 
Guinea. In the year 1776 my father was called into the army 
at New York, and left his work undone. In August, our good 
neighbor Captain John Fast, of West Simsbury, let my mother 
have the labor of his slave to plough a few days. I used to go 
out into the field with this slave, — called Sam, — and he used to 
carry me on his back, anTI I fell in love with him. He worked 
but a few days, and went home sick with the pleurisy, and died 
very suddenly. When told that he would die, he said he should 
go to Guinea, and wanted victuals put up for the journey. As I 
recollect, this was the first funeral I ever attended in the days 
of my youth. There were but three or four slaves in West 



1798.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD H 

SiDisbury. In the year 1790, when I lived with the Rev. Jeremiah 
Hallock, the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D., came from Newport, 
and I heard him talking with Mr. Hallock about slavery in Rhode 
Island, and he denounced it as a great sin. I think in the same 
summer Mr. Hallock had sent to him a sermon or pamphlet-book, 
written by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, then at New Haven. 
I read it, and it denounced slavery as a great sin. From this 
time I was antislavery, as much as I be now. In the year 
1798 I lived in Norfolk. There was a Presbyterian or Con- 
gregational minister settled in Virginia at the beginning of the 
Revolutionary War, by the name of Thomson, who on account 
of the war came to North Canaan with slaves, and not knowing 
how long the war would last, he bought a small farm in North 
Canaan, and lived on it till the close of the war; he then moved 
back to Virginia, and left a family of blacks on the farm. About 
1798 he came up to sell his farm and move back his slaves, as he 
called them. Some time before this, slavery had been abolished 
in Connecticut. Mr. Thomson had difficulty in getting away his 
slaves. One man would not go, and ran into the woods, and Mr. 
Thomson hired help to catch him. He was secreted among blacks 
that lived in a corner of Norfolk. Mr. Thomson preached for 
Mr. Robbins in Norfolk, assisted in the administration of the sac- 
rament, etc. There were blacks who belonged to the church, that 
absented themselves. Mr. Thomson attended meetings, I think, 
three Sabbaths; preached about twice. The last Sabbath it was 
expected he would preach in the afternoon; but there were a 
number of the church members who were dissatisfied with his 
being asked to preach, and requested Deacon Samuels and Dea- 
con Gaylord to go and ask Mr. Robbins not to have Mr. Thomson 
preach, as it was giving dissatisfaction. There was some ex- 
citement amongst the people, some in favor and some against Mr. 
Thomson; there was quite a debate, and large numbers to hear. 
Mr. Thomson said he should carry the women and children, 
whether he could get the man or not. An old man asked him if 
he would part man and wife, contrary to their minds. He said: 
' I married them myself, and did not enjoin obedience on the 
woman.' He was asked if he did not consider marriage to be 
an institution of God; he said he did. He was again asked why 
he did not do it in conformity to God's word. He appeared 
checked, and only said it was the custom. He was told that the 
blacks were free by act of the Legislature of Connecticut; he 
replied that he belonged to another State, and that Connecticut 
had no control over his property. I think he did not get away 
his ' property,' as he called it. Ever since I have been an Ab- 
olitionist ; and I am so near the end of life I think I shall die an 
Abolitionist. ' ' 



12 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN [1840. 

To these papers of his father should now be added 
John Brown's own account of his childhood and youth, 
written for Harry Stearns, a boy of thirteen. This is 
printed and punctuated exactly as Brown wrote it. 

THE CHILDHOOD OF JOHN BROWN. 

Red Rock, Ia., 15th July, 1857. 
Me. Henry L. Stearns. 

My dear young friend. — I have not forgotten my promise 
to write you; but my constant care, & anxiety have obliged me 
to put it off a long time. I do not flatter myself that I can 
write anything which will very much interest you ; but have 
concluded to send you a short story of a certain boy of my 
acquaintance; & for convenience & shortness of name, I will call 
him John. This story will be mainly a narration of follies and 
errors; which it is to be hoped you may avoid; but there is one 
thing connected with it, which will be calculated to encourage 
any young person to persevering effort; & that is the degree of 
success in accoinplishing Jm objects which to a great degree 
marked the course of this boy throughout my entire acquaintance 
with him ; notwithstanding his moderate capacity ; & still more 
moderate acquirements. 

John was born May 9th, 1800, at Torrington, Litchfield Co. 
Connecticut ; of poor but respectable parents ; a descendant on 
the side of his father of one of the company of the Mayflower 
who landed at Plymouth 1620. His mother was descended from 
a man who came at an early period to New England from Am- 
sterdam, in Holland. Both his Father 's and his Mother 's Fathers 
served in the war of the revolution; His Father's Father; died 
in a barn in New York while in the service; in 1776. 

I can not tell you anything in the first Four years of John's 
life worth mentioning save that at an early age he was tempted 
by Three large Brass Pins belonging to a girl who lived in the 
family & stole them. In this he was detected by his Mother; & 
after having a full day to think of the wrong; received from 
her a thorough whipping. When he was Five years old his 
Father moved to Ohio; then a wilderness filled with wild beasts, 
& Indians. During the long journey, which was performed in part 
or mostly with an ox-team; he was called on by turns to assist a 
boy Five years older (who had been adopted by his Father & 
Mother) & learned to think he could accomplish smart things 
in driving the Cows; & riding the horses. Sometimes he met 
with Rattle Snakes which were very large ; & which some of 
the company generally managed to kill. After getting 
to Ohio in 1805 he was for some time rather afraid of 



1805.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 13 

the Indians, & of their Rifles; but this soon wore off: & he used 
to hang about them quite as much as was consistent with good 
manners ; & learned a trifle of their talk. His father learned to 
dress Deer Skins, & at 6 years old Jolm was installed a young Buck 
Skin. He was perhaps rather observing as he ever after remem- 
bered the entire process of Deer Skin dressing ; so that he could at 
any time dress his own leather such as Squirel, Raccoon, Cat, Wolf 
and Dog Skins, and also learned to make Whip Lashes, which 
brought him some change at times, & was of considerable service in 
many ways. At Six years old he began to be a rambler in the 
wild new country finding birds and squirrels and sometimes a wild 
Turkey's nest. But about this period he was placed in the school of 
adversity ; which my young friend was a most necessary part of his 
early training. You may laugh when you come to read about it ; 
but these were sore trials to John : Avhose earthly treasures were 
very feio & small. These were tlie beginning of a severe but much 
needed course of dicipline which he afterwards was to pass thrcnigh ; 
& which it is to be hoped has learned him before this tfme that the 
Heavenly Father sees it best to take all the little things out of his 
hands which lie has ever placed in them. When John was in his 
Sixth year a poor Indian hoy gave him a Yellow Marble the first he 
had ever seen. This he thought a great deal of; & kept it a good 
while ; but at last he lost it beyond recovery. It tooh years to heal 
the wound & I think he cried at times about it. About Five months 
after tliis he caught a young Squirrel tearing off his tail in doing it ; 
& getting severely bitten at the same time himself. He however 
held on to the little lob tail Squirrel ; & finally g(jt him perfectly 
tamed, so that he almost idolized his pet. lids too lie lost ; by its 
wandering away ; or by getting killed ; & for a year or two John 
was in mourning ; and looking at all the Squirrels he could see to 
try & discover Bobtail, if possible. I must not neglect to tell you of 
a verry bad <& foolish babbit to which John was somewhat addicted. 
I mean telling lies ; generally to screen himself from blame ; or from 
punishment. He could not well endure to be reproached ; & I now 
think had he been ofteiier encouraged to be entirely frank ; by 
making frankness a kind of atonement iov some of his faults ; he 
would not have been so often guilty of this fault ; nor have been (in 
after life) obliged to struggle so long with so mean a habit. 

John was never quarelsome ; but was excessively fond of the hard- 
est & roughest kind of plays ; & could never get enough [of] them. 
Indeed when for a short time he was sometimes sent to School the 
opportunity it aft'orded to wrestle & Snow ball & run & jump & 
knock off old seedy Wool hats ; offered to him almost the only com- 
pensation for the confinement, & restraints of school. I need not 



14 LIFE- AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1812. 

tell you that with such a feelhig & but little chance of going to 
school at all: he did uot become much of a schollar. He would 
always choose to stay at home & work hard rather than be sent to 
school ; & during tlie warm season might generally be seen bare- 
footed & bareheaded : with Buck skin Breeches suspended often witli 
one leather strap over his slioulder but sometimes with Two. To 
be sent off through the wilderness alone to very considerable dis- 
tances was particularly his delight ; & in this he was ofteu indulged 
so that by the time he was Twelve years cdd he was sent off more 
tlian a Humlred Miles with companies of cattle; & he would have 
thought his character umch injured had he been fibligcd to be heli)e<l 
in any such job. This was a boyish kind of feeling but characteristic 
however. 

At Eight years old, John was left a Motherless boy which loss 
was complete & pearmaueut for notwithstanding his Father agaiu 
married to a sensible, intelligent, and ou many accounts a very esti- 
mable woman; yet he never adojited her in feeling ; but continued 
to pine after his own Mother for years. This opperated very unfa- 
vourably uppon him ; as he was both naturally fond of females ; &, 
withall, extremely diffident; & deprived him of a suitable connecting 
link between the different sexes ; the want of which might under 
some circumstances, have proved his ruin. 

When the war broke ont icith England, his Father soon com- 
menced furnishing the troops with beef cattle, the collecting & driv- 
ing of which afforded him some opportunity for the chase (on foot) 
of wild steers & other cattle through the woods. During this war 
he had some chance to form his own boyish judgment of men dt mea- 
sures : & to become somewhat familiarly acquainted with some who 
have figured before the country since that time. The effect of what 
he saw during the war was to so f^ir disgust him with Military affairs 
that he would neither train, or drill ; but paid fines ; & got alorig like 
a Quaker until his age finally has cleared him of Military duty. 

During the war with England a circumstance occurred that in the 
end made him a most determined Abolitionist : & led him to declare, 
or Swear : Eternal war with Slavery. He was staying for a sliort 
time with a very gentlemanly landlord since a United States Marshall 
who held a slave boy near his own age very active, inteligent and 
good feeling; & to whom John was under considerable obligation 
for numerous little acts of kindness. The master made a great pet 
of John: brought him to table with his first company; & friends; 
called their altentitm to every little smart thing he said or did: & 
to the fact c>f his being more than a hundred miles from home with a 
company of cattle alone ; while the negro bog (who was fully if not 
more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed ; d- lodged in cold 



1815.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 15 

weather ; <& beaten before his eyes with Iron Shovels or any other 
thing that came first to hand. This brought John to reflect on the 
wretched, hopeless condition, of Fatherless & Motherless slave chil- 
dren : for such cliildren have neither Fathers or Mothers to protect, 
& provide for them. He sometimes would raise the question is God 
their Father f 

At the age of Ten years an old friend induced him to read a little 
history, & oifered him the free use of a good library ; by ; which 
he acquired some taste for reading : which formed the principle part 
of his early education : & diverted him in a great measure from bad 
company. He by this means grew to be verry fond of the company, 
& conversation of old & intelligent persons. He never attempted to 
dance in his life; nor did he ever learn to knoAV one of a pack of Cards 
from another. He learned nothing of Grammer; nor did he get at 
school so much knowledge of common Arithmetic as the Four ground 
rules. This will give you some general idea of tlie first Fifteen years 
of his life; during which time he became very strong & large of his 
age & andjitious to perform the full labour of a man ; at almost any 
kind of hard work. By reading the lives of great, wis(^ & good men 
their sayings, and writings; he grew to a dislike of vain & frivolous 
conversation <£■ persons; & was often greatly obliged by the kind 
manner in which older & more inteligent persons treated him at 
their houses: & in conversation; which was a great relief on account 
of his extreme bashfuluess. 

He very early in life became ambitious to excel in doing anything 
he undertook to perform. This kind of feeling I would recommend 
to all young persons both male d- female: as it will certainly tend 
to secure admission to the company of the more inteligent ; & better 
portion of every community. By all means endeavour to excel in 
some laudable pursuit. 

I had like to have forgotten to tell you of one of John's misfortunes 
whicli set rather hard on Iiim while a young boy. He had by some 
means perhaps by gift of his fother become the owner of a little Ewe 
Lamb which did finely till it was about Two Thirds grown ; & tlieu 
sickened & died. This brought another protracted mourning season : 
not fhat he felt the pecuniary loss so much: for that was never his 
disposition ; but so strong & earnest were his atachments. 

John had been taught from earliest childhood to " fear God and 
keep his commandments ; " & thougii quite skeptical he had always 
by turns felt much serious doubt as to his future well being ; & about 
this time became to some extent a convert to Christianity & ever 
after a firm believer in the divine authenticity of the Bible. With 
this book he became very familiar, & possessed a most unusual 
memory of its entire contents. 



16 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1816. 

Now some of the things I have been telling of; were just such 
as I would recommeod to you : & I would like to know that you had 
selected these out ; & adopted them as part of your own plan of life ; 
& I wish you to have som£ deffinite plan. ]Many seem to have 
none ; & others never stick to any that they do form. This was not 
the case with John. He followed up with tenacity whatever he set 
about so long as it answered his general purpose : & hence he rarely 
failed in some good degree to effect the things he undertook. This 
was so much the case that he habitually exjiected to succeed in his 
undertakings. With this feeling should be coupled ; the consciousness 
that our plans are right in themselves. 

During the period I have named, John had acquired a kind of 
ownership to certain animals of some little value but as he had come 
to understand that the title of minors might be a little im})erfeet : he 
had recourse to various mean.s in order to secure a more independent ; 
& perfect riglit of j^roperty. One of those means was to exchange 
with his Father for something of far less value. Another was by 
trading witli others persons for something his Father had never 
owned. Older persons have some times found difficulty with titles. 

From Fifteen to Twenty years old, he spent most of his time work- 
ing at the Tanner & Currier's trade keeping Bachelors hall ; & he 
officiating as Cook ; & for most of the time as foreman of the estab- 
lishment under his Father. During this period he found much trouble 
with some of the bad liabits I have mentioned & with some that I 
have not told you off: his conscience urging him forward with great 
power in this matter: but his close attention to business ; & success 
in its management ; together with the way he got along with a com- 
pany of men, & boys ; made him quite a favorite with the serious & 
more iuteligent portion of older persons. This was so much the case ; 
& secured for him so many little notices from those he esteemed ; 
that his vanity was very much fed by it : & he came forward to man- 
hood quite fuH of self-conceit ; & self-confident ; notwithstanding his 
extreme bashfulness. A younger brother^ used sometimes to remind 
him of this : & to repeat to him this expression which you may some- 
where find, " A King against whom there is no rising up." The 
habit so early formed of being obeyed rendered him in after life too 
much disposed to speak in an imperious or dictating way. From Fif- 
teen years & upward he felt a good deal of anxiety to learn ; but could 
only read & studdy a little ; both for want of time ; & on account of 
inflammation of the eyes. He however managed by the help of books 
to make himself tolerably well acquainted with common arithmetic ; 
& Surveying ; which he practiced more or less after he was Twenty 
years old. 

1 This was Sahnon, uo doubt. 



1820.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 17 

At a little past Twenty years led by his own inclination & 
prompted also by his Father, he married a remarkably plain ; but 
neat industrious & economical girl ; of excellent character ; earnest 
piety ; & good practical common sense ; about one year younger than 
himself. This woman by her mild, frank, & more than all else: 
by her very consistent conduct; acquired & ever while she Hved 
maintained a most powerful ; & good influence over Mm. Her plain 
but kind admonitions generally had the right effect ; without arousing 
liis haughty obstinate temper. John began early in life to discover a 
great liking to fine Cattle, Horses, Sheep, & Swine ; & as soon as 
circumstances would enable him he began to be a practical Shep- 
herd : it being a calling for which in early life he had a kind of 
enthusiastic longing : together with the idea that as a business it bid 
fair to afford him the means of carrying out his greatest or principal 
object. I have now given you a kind of general idea of the early life 
of this boy ; & if I believed it would be worth the trouble ; or afford 
much interest to any good feeling person : I might be tempted to 
tell you something of his course in after life ; or manhood. I do not 
say that I will do it. 

You will discover that in using up my half sheets to save paper ; 
I have written Two pages, so that one does not follow the other as it 
should. I have no time to write it over; & but for unavoidable 
hindrances in traveling I can hardly say when I should have written 
what I have. With an honest desire for your best good, I subscribe 
myself, 

Your Friend, 

J. Brown. 

P. S. I had like to have forgotten to acknowledge your contri- 
bution in aid of the cause in which I serve. God Almighty bless 
you ; my son. 

J. B. 

This autobiography had its origin, as did so many other 
words and acts of John Brown in 1857-1859, in the hospi- 
talities of one house in Massachusetts where the okl hero 
Avas always welcome. Mr. George Luther Stearns, a wealthy 
merchant and manufacturer of Boston, but living in a beau- 
tiful villa at Medford, had invited Brown to Boston in 
December, 1856, when he came eastward from his first 
campaigns in Kansas. Brown accepted the invitation, and 
reached Boston a little after Christmas, 1856, meeting Mr. 
Stearns in the street and going with liim to the rooms of 
the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, where I first met 

2 



18 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. (1856. 

him. The next Sunday, the first in January, 1857, Brown 
went to the Boston Music Hall to hear Theodore Parker 
preach, and there met Mrs. Stearns (a niece of Mrs. Child, 
the graceful author of " Philothea "), who invited him to 
her house in Medford. He spent there the second Sunday 
in January, 1857, and made a deep impression on the oldest 
son of the family, then in his thirteenth j'^ear, by the stories 
he told of the sufferings of the pioneer families in Kansas. 
Running to the next room, and bringing forth his hoard of 
pocket-money, the boy thrust it into John Brown's hand, 
saying, '• Will you buy something, — a pair of shoes, or 
something, — for one of those little Kansas children?" 
and then adding, as the old man thanked him, "Captain 
Brown, will you not write me, sometime, what sort of a 
little boy you were ? " Brown looked at him with surprise 
and pleasure, and promised him to do so. In due time this 
long letter reached Medford, addressed to Harry, but with a 
short note to Mr. Stearns at the end of it. Mrs. Stearns, 
who at once saw its value, treasured it carefully ; and after 
Brown's death she requested her friend Mr. Emerson to 
make this autobiography part of a sketch of the hero which 
he was urged to write. Mr. Emerson admired and praised 
it, but was compelled to decline the task of writing Brown's 
Life, as also did Henry Thoreau (who knew Brown well) and 
Mrs. Child. Then IVIrs. Stearns permitted Mr. Redpath to 
print it in his biography, for the sake of bringing money to 
supply the needs of the widow and children of Brown. It 
has been since reprinted again and again from Mr. Red- 
path's book. * I have made my copy from the original let- 
ter, and thus corrected some variations in the punctuation 
and spelling, which had crept into the published copies. 
Brown's writing was peculiar in these respects, and by no 
means uniform ; but his style everywhere shows the same 
vigor and simplicity, and he had the art of Homer and 
Herodotus to mingle the colloquial with the serious, with- 
out any loss of dignity or effect. He thought humbly of 
his own composition, and would sometimes say, " 1 know 
no more of grammar than one of that farmer's calves ; " 
but he had what is essential in all grammars, — the power 
to make himself understood. 



1856.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 19 

The house in which John Brown was born, as mentioned 
in this autobiography,^ still stands in Torrington, Conn., in 
the western part of the town, three miles from Wolcottville, 
six from Litchfield, and ten from Winsted, on a by-road. It 
much resembles the old farm-house in Concord in which 
Thoreau was born, and the engraving of one might easily 
pass for that of the other. The log-house of Owen Brown, 
in Hudson, Ohio, stood on what is now the public square in 
that town ; and in a little valley near by, not far from 
the railroad, was the tannery where John Brown learned 
his ftither's trade. His childhood was passed in Hudson 
and its vicinity in the manner above described. He read 
the Bible, the " Fables of ^sop," the " Life of Franklin," 
the hymns of Dr. Watts, "Pilgrim's Progress," and a few 
more books ; but his school education was very scanty. 

Although in order of time the following correspondence 
belongs in a later chapter, I introduce it here to show what 
were the relations throughout life of John Brown and his 
father. The latter lived till within four years of John 
Brown's execution, dying May 8, 1856, at the age of eighty- 
five. Only six weeks before his death he wrote as follows 
to his son in Kansas, — verbatim et literatim: — 

Letter of Owen Brown to John Brown. 

Hudson (Ohio), March 27, '56. 

Dear son John, — I received yours of 13th on the 25t,h, and was 

very glad to hirn that all your Fanielys were so well, and that you had 

not been distourbed by the enemy. Your letters come very regular, 

and we look carfuly after them. I have been faithfull to answer 

1 It was after hearing this letter read that Miss Osgood, of Medford, re- 
marked, " If Captain ]5rown had not been called, in the providence of God, 
to a very ditlerent work, what charming stories he could have written for 
young children ! " The original manuscript fills six pages of closely writ- 
ten letter-paper, without division into paragraphs. The contributions 
made by Harry Stearns and by others "in aid of the cause in which I 
serve," were given to helj) the oppressed pioneers of Kansas whom Brown 
was then defending. His father, Owen Brown, as a beef contractor, was 
with Hall's army at or just before the surrender at Detroit in 1812, accom- 
panied by his son John. John, then twelve years old, circulated among the 
American soldiers and officers, and overlieard many conversations in camp 



20 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

them, not out of amLishou, but to keep one or more on the road all 
the time. My health at present is not so good ; for three weeks past I 
am somewhat put to it to breathe, mostly nights, and sometimes feel as 
though death was at the dore. 1 feel as though God was very merso- 
full to keep such a great sinner on probation so long. I ask all ot 
you to pray more earnestly for the salvation of my soul than for the 
life of my body, and that I may give myself and all 1 have up to 
Christ, and honer him by a sacratise of all we have. 

I think that the moovments of Congress will prevent an invasion 
of your rights ; they have voted to send to Kansas to investigate the 
situation fand] elections. I think of cliping from some papers some 
short Acts of Congress and inclose them in a private letters and send 
tliem to you. I tbiidi I shall have them very regular. I wrote ^Mr. 
Giddeonsi ["Giddiugs" in John Brown's band written over this 
name] about 3 weeks ago to send me the debats and Acts of Con- 
gress on the subjects of Kansas from time to time. He was at home 
then sick, but has now returned to Con [in John Brown's hand 
" Washington" is written in before " Con "] and the papers begin to 
come. 

Friends are midliug well as far as I know. I am now at Ed- 
ward's ; it is rather a cold, stormy day. We have had a remarkable 
cold, snowe winter, and the snow is mostly on the gnnmd now. We 
have 3 only plesent dayes this week, but have had no rain through 
the winter. I consider all of my Children at Kansas as one Famely, 
and hope you will take turns in writeing. They are midling well at 
Edward's, and wish to be remembered. 

Your unfaithful Parent, 

Owen Brown. 

N. B. 28tli. After writing the above, Edward had a paper from 
which we dipt the within. "•^ 0. B. 

concerning General Hull and his position. He saw much of General Cass, 
then a captain under Hull; and it is to him, no doubt, that allusion is 
made as one of those "who have figured before the country since that 
time." Long afterward (in 1857), he told me that he overheard such conver- 
sation from Cass, McxVrtbur, and otliei- officers as woiikl have branded them 
as miitineers, if lie could have reported it to the Washington authorities. 
He believed that Hull was forced into the false position wliich led to liis 
surrender, by the ill-conduct of his subonlinate officers. 

1 Owen Brown and most of his sons and grandsons wlien in Ohio were 
constituents of Joshua R. Giddings, the famous antislavery Congressman 
from the Western Reserve. 

2 This letter is addressed in the feeble linndwriting of an old man to 
"John Brown, Osawatomie, K. T.," and is indorsed in his son's hand- 
writing, "Owen Brown's Letter, March 27, 1856." The original is among 



1846.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 21 

This was the last of many letters written to his son in the 
forty years since 1817, when John first left home for long 
absences. A few of John Brown's replies have come into 
my hands, chiefly of the years 1846-1849, of which the 
following are specimens : — 

John Brown to his Father. 

Springfield, Mass., 29tli Oct., 1846. 

Dear Father, — Yours of the 22d, telling us of the death of 
brother King, is received. I must say, that, with ah his imperfections 
and faults, I certainly feel that if he has not been a very warm- 
hearted, yet he has been a steady, friend, and on some accounts a 
useful friend ; and I mourn his frailties and death sincerely. You 
say he expected to die, but do not say how he felt in regard to the 
change as it drew near. I have to confess my unfaithfulness to my 
friend in regard to his most important interest. I did not fail to write 
you, as soon as I returned myself, from want of inclination, but be- 
cause I thought it would please you quite as much to get a letter from 
Jason. We are getting along moderately with our business, but when 
we shall be able to close it up will be difficult to say, for we still 
continue to receive large quantities of wool. Prices rather improve. 
We expect to be ready to close up all the lots Jerry brought on in a 
very few days. Have contracted away the lowest he brought at 
twenty-live cents per pound. There is no doulit but we might make 
the most advantageous exchanges of wool for any description of 
woollen goods that are wanted in the country. We shall probably 
take hold of the business with a view to such exchanges another year, 
if we continue the wool business. We find no difficulty in disposing 
of the very coarsest wools, now that we have learned better where to 
sell them, and can turn them cash. Please write often, and let us hear 
how you all get along, and what you think proper to say to us. 
Your affectionate son, 

John Brown. 

Springfielp, Mass., 10th Dec, 1846. 
Dear Father, — Yours, dated 2d and 3d December, we re- 
ceived this evening. It is perhaps needless for me to say that I am 
always grateful for everything of that kind I receive from you, and 

the Brown Papers in the library of the Kansas Historical Society at Topeka, 
from whose invaluable collections I liave drawn much material for this 
work. 



22 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1847. 

that I think I have your whole correspoudence for nearly thirty years 
laid up to remember you by, — I mean, of course, what you have di- 
rected to me. I would further say, that 1 feel grateful to you, and my 
brother, for calling to see my dear afflicted wife and children in their 
calamity. It is a great comfort that / can in my imagination see my 
always kind and affectionate old father with them, while at the same 
time the responsibilities I have assumed constrain me to be absent, 
very contrary to my feeling (and it may be contrary to my duty, too ; 
but trust not). I mean to return sometime in February, and should 
feel like one out of prison could I leave to-morrow. I hope you will 
visit my family as often as you can during my absence, and that you 
will write us often while here. We will endeavor, one of us, to reply 
promptly at least. We are getting along with our business slowly, 
but prudently, I trust, and as well as we could reasonably expect 
under all the circumstances ; and so far as we can discover, we are 
in favor with this people, and also with the many we have had to do 
business with. I sent home a good supply of excellent cloth for 
pantaloons, from which you can have some if it suits you, and should 
arrive safe. If it does not, please write me without delay. Jason 
took the cloth with him (cost eighty-five cents per yard). I can 
bring more cloth of almost any kind when I return, should there be 
need. 

When I think how very little influence I have even tried to use 
witli my numerous acquaintances and friends, in turning their minds 
toward God and heaven, I feel justly condemned as a most wicked 
and slothful servant ; and the more so, as I have very seldom had 
any one refuse to listen when I earnestly called him to hear. I 
sometimes have dreadful reflections about having fled to go down to 

Tarshish. 

Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., April 2, 1847. 
Dkar Father, — Your very kind as well as rational letter I 
received last evening. I trust I do in some measure realize that only 
a few, a very few, years will of necessity bring to me a literal accom- 
plishment of the sayings of the Preacher. I am quite sensible of the 
truth of your remark, that my family are quite as well off as tliougli 
we possessed millions. I hope we may not be left to a feeling of 
ingratitude, or greediness of gain ; and I feel unconscious of a desire 
to become rich. I hope my motive for exerting myself is higher. 
I feel no incliuation to move my family to Springfield on account of 
any change tliat I am itching for, and think it very doubtful whether 
I ever conclude on it as the best course. My only motive would be 



1848. 



ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 23 



to have them with me, if I continue in my present business, which I 
am hy no means attached to. I seem to get along middling well, and 
hope to return in a short time. Wrote Jeremiah some days since. 
I shall pay ten cents very cheerfully to hear that you are alive and 
well, at any time ; and should not grudge to pay more for such kind 
and ever seasonable pointing me to the absolute vanity of this world's 
treasures, as well as the solemn future which is before uk;. It affords 
me great satisfiiction to get a letter fi-om you at this period of your 
life, so handsomely written, so well worded, and so exactly in point, 
both as to manner and (wliat is mucli more) matter. I intend to 
preserve it carefully. 

Your affectionate son, 

John Brown. 

Spkixgfield, Mass., 1st Nov., 1847. 

Dear Father, — After some three (.ir fmr days' delay on the 
road, we arrived here safe to-day about noon, and found all here well; 
but our hard hearts are never thankful as they should be. Always 
dependent and constantly receiving, we arc; ungrateful enough to be 
cast ofi", — if that were our only fault ! Our business, so far as I can 
judge, has gone along middling well during my absence. Watson is 
not yet very .stout, but is perhaps a little improved since I left. We 
shall all be anxious to hear from Luciau, and from you all, and how 
you got home from Austinburg, as soon and as often as we can. 
Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 
Mr. Hubbard has deeded his swamp farm to John Sherman. Has 
not sold his thirty-acre lot at MunroviUe, but has offered it for sale 
to William Hickox and Kelsey. 

Yours, 

J. B. 

Springfield, Mass., 2d Dec, 1847. 
Dear Father, — Yours of the 9th November was received a few 
days since, but I have delayed writing on two accounts since receiving 
it. One, is the greater press of business, and increased anxiety on 
account of the sudden change in money matters; the other, that it is 
always hard for me to make out a letter without something to make it 
out of. We have been middling well since I returned, except John 
and Watson. John has had a short turn of fever, and Watson has 
seemed to have a number of complaints, but both are better now. Our 
business seems to be going on middling well, and will not probably 
be any the worse for the pinch in the money concerns. I trust that 



24 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN UKUWX.. [1847. 

getting or losing money does not entirely engross our attention ; but 
T am sensible that it occupies (juite too large a share in it. To get a 
little property together to leave, as the world have done, is really 
a low mark to be firing at through life. 

" A nobler toil may I sustain, 
A nobler satisfaetiou gain." 

You wrote us that Lucian seemed to decline. This is not unex- 
pected ; but we hope that a life still lengthened may not all be mis- 
spent, and that the little of duty to God and mankind it may yet be 
in his power to do may be done with his might, and that the Lord 
Jesus Christ will be the end of the law for righteousness, for that 
which must be left undone. This is the only hope for us bankrupts, 
as we may see at once if we will but look at our account. We hope 
to hear how you all are again soon. 

AU'ectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., 16th Jan., 1818. 

Dear Father, — It is Sabbath evening ; and as I have waited 
now a long time expecting a letter from you, I have concluded to 
wait no longer for you to write to me. I received the Hudson paper 
giving an account of the death of another of our family. I expected 
to get a letter from you, and so have been waiting ever since getting 
the paper. I never seemed to possess a faculty to console and com- 
fort my friends in their grief; I am inclined, like the poor comforters 
of Job, to sit down in silence, lest in my miserable way I should only 
add to their grief. Another feeling that I have in your case, is an 
entire consciousness tliat I can bring before your mind no new source 
of consolation, nor mention any wliich, 1 trust, you Iiave not long 
since made full proof of. I need not say that I know how to sympa- 
thize with you ; for that you equally well understand. I will only 
utter one word of humble confidence, — " Though He slay me, yet 
will I trust in Him, and bless His name forever." We arc all in 
lu'alth here, but have just been taking another lesson on the uncer- 
tainty of all we hold here. One week ago yesterday, Oliver found 
some root of the plant called hemlock, that he supposed was carrot, 
and eat some of it. In a few minutes he was taken with vomiting 
and dreadful convulsions, and soon became senseless. However, b^ 
resorting to the most jiowerful emetics he was recovered from it, like 
one raised from the dead, almost. 

The country in this direction has been suffering one of the sever- 
est money pressures known for many years. The conse(|ucnce to us 
has been, tliat some of those who have contractt'd for wool <.>f us are 



1849.] ANCESTEY AND CHILDHOOD. 25 

as yet unable to pay for and take the wool as they agreed, and we 
are on that account unable to close our business. This, with some 
trouble and perplexity, is the greatest injury we have suffered by it. 
We have had no winter as yet scarcely, the weather to-day being 
almost as warm as summer. We want to hear how you all are very 
much, and all about how you get along. I hope to visit you in the 
spring. Farewell. 

Your affectionate, unworthy son, 

John Brown. 

Springfielti, Mass., 5th Feb., 1849. 

Dear Father, — I write you at this time more because you 
said in your last that you "love lettei'S more now than ever before," 
than on account of anything I have to write. We are here all mid- 
dling well, except our youngest child, who has been quite feeble since 
last fall. Owen's arm seems to be improving slowly. We have 
been selling wool middling fast of late, on contract, at 1847 prices. 
We have in this part of the country the strongest prfiofs that the great 
majority have made gold their hope, their only hope. I think that 
almost every product of industry will soon become high, from the 
fact alone that such a vast number of those who have hitherto been 
producers will cease to be so, and hereafter, for a time at least, be 
only consumers. I am inclined to think that persons who are in 
debt, and who hold any property of value, are likely to have a most 
favorable time to get out of debt. Would it not he loell to have 
the word go round amongst all the Broums, that they may get ready 
to sell off enough of sometliing to pay all debts? I really wisib that 
Oliver and Frederick ^ would take the hint, and when things get up 
(which I feel confident they will do), go at once to selling off and 
paying up. There is no way of making money so easy as by selling 
when every one wants to buy. It may cost us some little sacrifice of 
feeling at first, but w(juld open a new ivorld almost, if thoroughly 
done. 

I have felt a good deal of anxiety about the injury you received 
on your way home; was glad to hear that you was in any measure 
comfortable. I did not intend to put off writing so long ; but I al- 
ways find it exceedingly hard work to write when I have nothing to 
communicate that is worth as much as the paper and postage. Your 
letters are not of so barren a character ; so that we shall not expect 
you to pay tlie postage when you write, which we hope will be often. 
Your aflectiouate but unworthy son, 

John Brown. 

1 His brothers, or cousins ; not his sous. 



26 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1833. 

These letters show upon what terms of affection and re- 
ligious sympathy John Brown lived with his pious father, — 
a man everywhere respected. Colonel Perkins, of Akron, 
Ohio, who was the capitalist partner of John Brown in the 
wool business, and lost money thereby, had no great respect 
for his partner's prudence, but said : '' His father had more 
brains than John Brown, and was a more prudent man." 
He was long a trustee of Oberlin College, and it was 
through him that John Brown was sent to Virginia in 
1840, to survey the wild lands there which belonged to that 
college. John Brown, Jr., says : " My grandfather, Owen 
Brown, of Hudson, had no son for whom he entertained 
more sincere regard than for his son John. I was myself 
for years almost as one of my grandfather's family, and had 
the best means of knowing." His aunt, John Brown's half- 
sister, Mrs. Marian Hand, of Wellington, Ohio, now living, 
confirms this statement. She also furnishes me with some 
facts concerning her brother Salmon, for whom his father 
had " great anxiety and fears " while he was studying law 
at Pittsburg in 1824, and who, he says, •'* was of some note 
as a gentleman, but I never knew that he gave evidence of 
being a Christian." 

It seems that Salmon Brown, after beginning to practise 
law, travelled far and wide over the United States, and 
particularly in the South, where he finally took up his resi- 
dence at New Orleans, and became the editor of a news- 
paper, " The Bee," which was published both in French and 
English, and seems to have opposed the administration of 
Andrew Jackson. His career as a journalist was from 1830 
to 1833, and he died at Thibodeauxville, or New Orleans, 
in the autumn of 1833. A letter from John Brown to his, 
brother Frederick thus mentions Salmon's death, among 
other matters of smaller concern : — 



Randolph, Penn., Oct. 26, 1833. 
Dear Brother, — - 1 arrived at home without any mishap on 
Saturday of the week I left you, and found all well. I had received 
newspapers from Thibodeauxville during my absence, similar to those 
sent to fiither, but no letters respecting the death of our brother. I 
believe I was to write father as soon as I returned, but I have 



1829.] ^ ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 27 

nothing further to write, and you can show him this. I will imme- 
diately let him know what answer I get to the letter I shall send to 
the South by this mail, respecting our dear brother. 

I enclose fifteen dollai's, and wish you to let me know that you re- 
ceive it. Destroy my note, and accept my thanks. If you aflford 
my colt plenty of good pasture, hay, aud salt, it is all I wish, unless 
he should fall away badly or be sick. Your's bore his journey well. 
Please tell Milton Lusk that I wish to have him pay over the money 
I left with him to Juliau, without delay. 

Afi'ectiouately yours, 

John Brown. 

P. S. I want to be informed of any news respecting Salmon as 
soon as any of you get any. 

The three following letters are all that I have received 
from the papers of Salmon Brown, who wrote a neat hand 
and rather a difEuse, ceremonious style, at variance with the 
direct, laconic manner of his father and brother, but who re- 
sembled them in the earnestness with w'hich he pursued his 
objects, and the serious affection he manifested for all his 
family, and particularly for his father. 

Salmon Broion to Owen Brown, Sr. 

HuNTSviLLE, Ala., Feb. 28, 1829. 
Honored Father, — In order to avoid that circumlocution of 
" compliments," which I have heard you mention as one of the de- 
fects of my letters in general, it shall be the object of this to make 
known to you, with the least preamble and in the fewest possible 
number of Avords, all that a parent, kind and solicitous as you have 
ever been, might desire to know in relation to the welfare of an ab- 
sent child. My health, thank God, has been uniformly good since I 
was at Hudson last July. From New York, if I mistake not, some- 
time in the month of September, I wrote you a letter, and inclosed 
one of my printed circulars, by which I presumed you would be made 
acquainted with the tour I had in contemplation, and the several 
points to which letters might be directed in season to reach me. 
This probably was not received till after your return from New 
England, which circumstance sufficiently accounts for its not being 
answered. I have pursued almost literally the track indicated by the 
ch-cular alluded to, and still intend to pei'severe, till I have accom- 
plished the entire journey. My operations have been as successful as 
heretofore, though I have experienced more delays than usual. On 



28 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1829. 

leaviug this place, I shall proceed South, by the way of Tuscaloosa 
and Mobile, to New Orleans ; but having business to transact at a 
great many intermediate places, I cannot determine with any degree 
of certainty when I shall reach there, or how early I shall be able to 
leave tliat place in the spring. 

This, I am resolved, shall be my last tour in the United States, at 
least on the extensive scale I have practised for the last three years. 
I however still intend to execute the project which I disclosed to 
you last summer; and I cannot neglect the present opportunity to 
thank you for the very valuable hint which you suggested to me, in 
respect of availing myself of the facilities which my travels afford, to 
collect materials and information to be made use of hereafter in pub- 
lie lecturing. I have reflected much on the subject, and I am fully 
persuaded the business may be turned to a good practical account, 
in reference to my intended operations abroad. I am therefore ap- 
plying myself to the subject in good earnest, both by extending my 
own personal observations as widely as possible, and by consulting 
any vA^itten authority which may throw light upon my object of 
research. But pray let this matter, as well as the other, rest for the 
present between ourselves exclusively. 

I am exceedingly anxious to receive a letter from you. When 
shall I be gratified ? On my arrival at New Orleans ? I hope so. 
I also hope that you will not be sparing of the local news of your 
vicinity. I should lilte to know something of the results of your jour- 
ney to the East. You doubtless heard of me am(mg our family 
relations. I am obliged to leave off abruptly, and 1 will not delay 
sending this for the sake of filling out the sheet at another time. My 
love to all our family, and to my friends in general. Adieu. 

Salmon Brown. 



St. Louis, June 18, 1829. 
Honored Father, — Having ascended the river to this place, 
and being under the necessity of returning again to Natchez in order 
to close some unfinished business, I write to advise you of my in- 
tended movements. By the ordinary course of steamboat navigation 
I shall reach there (Natchez) in the course of five or six days, and 
my stay in that region will be as short as possible. It is my inten- 
tion afterwards to proi?eed by the interior of Alabama to Florida, and 
thence through Georgia and the Carolinas to the North. I cannot at 
this time name witli certainty any place where letters directed to my 
address would be received, though Tallahassee in Florida would seem 
to be the most eligible point ; at all events, I hope you will write to 
me there. I left New Orleans without receiving any letters from you, 



1830.] ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD. 29 

which was a great disappointment. I however made arrangements 
by which I shall still get them, if any come on to that post-office. I 
have enjoyed good health and thus far a reasonable share of pros- 
perity in the prosecution of my business, though delays have been 
more frequent than I anticipated, and of longer duration, which will 
be the means of detaining me all summer in the Southern country. 
I beg you will not permit yourself to be uneasy on account of my 
liealth. I shall avoid the low country on the sea-coast, and by con- 
fining myself to the high ground of the interior, I apprehend very 
little danger. Finally, go where I may, I am in the hands of the 
same kind Providence that has heretofore guided me safely through 
an infinity of perils. I have been preserved, no doubt, for some wise 
purpose. I hope it may be to accomplish some great good in the 
world ; if not, why should I desire to live ? 

I am still occupied, heart and soul, with the scheme I have inti- 
mated to you before. It is the theme of my constant meditations, 
night and day ; and I am devoting all my leisure moments for its ac- 
complishment. That the design is a good and laudable one, I have 
no doubt. This gives me confidence to expect great success.^ 

I cannot write more at this moment, but if I am prospered, you 
shall hear from me frequently. Adieu. 

Your aflectionate son, 

Salmon Browtn. 

Louisville, Ky., Aug. 22, 1830. 

Honored Father, — I avail myself of the first moment of leisure 
on my arrival at this place to relieve you from the anxiety which I 
am conscious you have ere this begun to feel on my account. I could 
nut have neglected writing so long had I anticipated the possibility of 
being detained so long at the South. One cause of delay after an- 
other pnjlonged the period of my departure from New Orleans till the 
latter part of July, and having to stop at several places on the river 
where I had business to look after, and the rivers being almost too 
low for steamboat navigation at this season, August has almost passed 
away before I could reach here. My health, thank God, has been 
uniformly good, and I am quite well at this time. 

I am without news from any of my family or friends these several 
months past, which makes me exceedingly anxious about their wel- 
fare. I hope some of you will write instantly on receiving this, and 

1 It does not appear what this "laudable design" was, but it must have 
been, in part at least, of a public nature. At this time Sahnon Brown was 
twenty-seven years old. He was the brother next in age to John, and was 
at school with him for a time in Connecticut. 



30 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1830. 

direct to Wheeling, Virgiuia, where I expect to be in the course of 
three or four weeks. It is impossible for nie to determine whether I 
can visit Hudson this fall or not. I am engaged about some political 
arrangements in opposition to the present unprincipled and corrupt 
Administration, to which I have become so committed as not to be 
master of my own time. The arrangements alluded to have for their 
object the best interests of our common country ; and believing that I 
may be instrumental in doing good in this way, I feel it to be my duty 
to exert my endeavors. I go from this place to Frankfort, thence to 
Lexington/ thence to Maysville, and thence to Wheeling. If it shall 
be possil)le for me to visit Hudson before I proceed to the eastward, 
I will do so. 

An infirmity of my nerves, proceeding from an unknown cause, 
makes it difficult to write legibly, I have been conscious that tliis 
was growing ou me for years, without being able to apply any 
remedy. I never lived so tempei-ately as I have the year past. 
Pray present me to tlie recollection of my brothers and sisters, and to 
all my friends atfectionately. Years do but increase and coutirm the 
sense of filial duty and gratitude with whicli I remain 

Your sou, 

Salmon Brown. 

^ Henry Clay lived near Lexington, and it was doubtless in the interest 
of that statesman and his friends that }'oung Brown undertook tliis crusade 
against the " unprineijiled and corrupt administration " of General Jackson, 
who had been elected in 1828 and inaugurated in 1829, in spite of Clay, — 
defeating John Quincy Adams. I have not yet found copies of Brown's 
"New Orleans Bee," but doubtless the sting of this journal was directed 
against Jackson in the city which he rescued from British invasion. 



1816.] - YOUTH AND EAKLY MANHOOD. 31 



CHAPTER II. 
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 

JOHN BROWN'S childhood passed, like that of most 
boys in a new country, in the midst of active labor 
and rude sport, but with little advantage of schooling at 
home. Like all serious-minded lads of Puritan stock, how- 
ever, he dreamed at one time of completing his education in 
a college, and then studying for the ministry. He " expe- 
rienced religion," and joined the " Orthodox " or Congre- 
gational Church at Hudson in 1816. Soon after this he 
revisited Connecticut, and went to the town of Canton to 
consult a kinsman of his father, the Rev. Jeremiah Hal- 
lock, concerning his studies in divinity, — whose advice 
was that Owen Brown's son should fit for Amherst College 
(where his uncle, the Rev. Heman Humphrey, was soon 
to be President), and that his teacher should be the Rev. 
Moses Hallock, of Plainfield, in Massachusetts.^ This 
school at Plainfield was famous for graduating ministers 
and missionaries, and the poet Bryant had been a student 
there a few years before, — Plainfield being next to Cum- 
mington, where Bryant was born, and not far from Amherst. 
No doubt the lad's hope was to fit himself at Plainfield and 
then enter at Amherst, working his way by his own efforts, 
as so many young men have since done. But he was at- 

1 John Brown seems to have been for a short time at the Morris 
Academy in Connecticut, in company with his younger brother Salmon, 
ah-eady mentioned. A story of the two brothers is tokl, how John, 
finding that Sahnon had committed some school offence, for which tlie 
teaclier had jiardoned him, said to the teacher: " Mr. Vail!, if Salmon had 
done this thing at home, father would have jiunished him. I know he 
would expect you to punish him now for doing this, — and if you don't, I 
shall." That night, finding that Salmon was likely to escape punishment, 
John made good his word, — more in sorrow than in anger, — giving his 
brother a severe flogging. 



32 LIFE AND LETTERS OE JOHN BROWN.. [1820. 

tacked with inflammation of the eyes, which soon became 
serious, so that he was forced to give up study, and go back 
to his father's tan-yard in Hudson. The time spent at the 
Plainfield school was short, and there are few reminiscences 
of him at that period. In December, 1859, Heman Hallock, 
the youngest son of the Eev. Moses Hallock, wrote to 
his brother Gerard Hallock, then editor of the New York 
" Journal of Commerce," as follows : — 

" Your youngest brother docs remember John Brown, who studied 
at our house. How long he lived there, or at what period, I do not 
know. I think it must have been at the time of my visits to Plain- 
field, when I was or had been at Amherst Academy, perhaps in 
1819 or 1820. I have the name ' John Brown ' on my hst of i^ither's 
students. It is said that he was a relative of Uncle Jeremiah Hal- 
lock's wife, and that Uncle J. directed him to Plainfield. He was a 
tall, sedate, dignified young man, from twenty-two to twenty-five 
years old.^ He had been a tanner, and relinquished a prosperous 
business for the purpose of intellectual improvement. He brought 
with him a piece of sole-leather about a foot square, which he had 
himself tanned, for seven years, to re-sole his boots. He had also 
a piece of sheep-skin which he had tanned, and of which he cut 
some strips, about an eighth of an inch wide, for other students to 
pull upon. Father took one string, and winding it around his fin- 
gers said, with a triumphant turn of the eye and mouth, ' I shall 
snap it.' The very marked yet kind immovableness of the young 
man's face, on seeing father's defeat, father's own look, and the 
position of people and things in the old kitchen, somehow gave 
me a fixed recollection of this little incident." 

From theology, young Brown turned his attention to sur- 
veying ; and his text-book, " Flint's Survey," now owned by 
his son John Brown, Jr., bears date at Hudson in 1820. He 
became a skilful surveyor ; but his chief occupation from 
1819 for nearly twenty years was the tanning of leather, 

^ The maturity of John Brown's appearance at the age of nineteen is 
shown by this remark : he could not have been twenty years old when study- 
ing at Plainfield. My own date for this experience would be 181 9 ; for Brown 
was married to Dianthe Lusk, June 21, 1820. He had previously been dis- 
appointed in love, and as he said in a letter written from Gerrit Smith's 
house, Feb. 24, 1858, "felt for a number of years in earlier life a steady, 
strong desire to die." This letter will be found on a later l^Kge, in its due 
connection. 



1820.] ♦ YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 33 

which his father had taught him, and in which he had ac- 
quired much skill before 1820, as may be inferred from his 
autobiography. His log-house and tan-yard were a mile 
or more from his father's, and northwest of the village of 
Hudson. The home which was built under his direction in 
1824 is a large wooden farm-house, standing in pleasant ru- 
ral scenery ; and Hudson itself, which is one of the oldest vil- 
lages in Northern Ohio, and for many years the seat of a small 
college, has the air of a thriving Connecticut town. When 
John Brown first occupied his cabin in 1819-20, he was un- 
married, and his housekeeper was Mrs. Lusk, the widow of 
Amos Lusk, a Hudson farmer, and the mother of Brown's 
future wife. Her brother, Milton Lusk, who was living in 
1882, gave me then some reminiscences of his brother-in-law, 
which may serve to complete the sketch drawn by Brown 
himself of his resolute, serious, and headstrong youth. 

" I am now seventy-nine years old," said this kinsman of John 
Brown, ''for I was born in 1803, my sister Dianthe in 1801, and 
Brown in 1800. I knew him from a boy, went to school with him, 
and remember well what a commanding disposition he always had. 
There was once a Democratic school and a Federal school in Hndson 
village, and the hoys used to snow-ball each other. Brown and I 
were federalists, as our fathers, Squire Brown and Captain Lusk, 
were. One day the Democratic boys found a wet hollow in the bat- 
tle-field of snow-balls, and began to throw wet balls, which were 
hard and hurt 'masterly.' John stood this for awhile, — then he 
rushed alone upon the little Democrats, and drove them all before 
him into their schoolhouse. He did not seem to be angry, but there 
was such force and mastery in what he did, that everything gave way 
before him. He doted on being the head of the heap, and he was ; 
lie doted on his ability to hit the mark. Dianthe, my sister, was not 
tall like my father (who fouglit at the siege of Sandusky and died in 
tlie spring of 1813), but about her mother's height; she was plain, 
but attracted John Brown, by her quiet, amiable disposition. She 
was my guiding-star, my guardian angel ; she sung beautifully, 
most always sacred hymns and tunes ; and sh? had a place in the 
woods, not far from the house, where she used to go alone to pray. 
She took me there sometimes to pray with me. She was a pleasant, 
cheerful person, but not funny; she never said anything but what 
she meant. When mother and Dianthe were keeping house for 
John Brown at the old log-cabin where he had his tannery, I was 
working as a boy at Squire Hudson's in the village, and had no 

3 



34 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1820. 

time to go up and see ray mother and sister except Sundays.^ Brown 
was an austere feller, and he did n't like that ; one day he said to me, 
' Milton, I wish you would not make your visits here on tlie Sab- 
bath.' I said, '■ John, I won't coine Sunday, nor any other day,' 
and I stayed away a long time. When Dianthe was married, I 
would not go to the wedding. I did not get along very well with 
him for some years ; but when he was living in Pennsylvania, and I 
had my controvei'sy with the church iu Hudson, he came and prayed 
with me, and shed tears, and said perhaps I was nearer right than he 
had thought. After my sister's death he said to John, his son, ' I 
feel sure that your mother is now with me and influencing me.' He 
■was tasty in his dress, — about washing, bathiug, brushing, etc. ; 
when he washed him, he pushed his hair back from his forehead." 

Joliu Brown, Jr., who was born at liis father's first home 
in Hudson, gives the following account of one of his first 
recollections of that neighborhood : — 

" Our house, on a lane which connects two main roads, was built 
under father's direction in 1824, and still stands much as he built it, 

1 Hudson was named for a Connecticut farmer, David Hudson (born iu 
Goshen, 1758), commonly called "the Squire," who led the settlement 
there in 1799, and whose daughter, Mrs. Harvey Baldwin, whom I saw- 
in 1878, was the first white child born in the town. Her father is 
buried in the cemetery not far from the grave of Owen Brown, out of which 
a young hemlock tree, twelve feet high, was growing when I visited it 
in' 1878. Squire Hudson gave the land iu Hudson on which the West- 
ern Reserve College was built ; lie was a strict Calvinist, and an original 
abolitionist, like Owen Brown. Mr. Elizur Wright, now of Boston, 
formerly a schoolmate of John Brown, and afterwards a professor in the 
college at Hudson, tells me that he met Squire Hudson, one day in Sep- 
teiuljer, 1831, coming from his post-office, and reading a newspaper he 
Iiad just received, which seemed to excite him very much as he read. 
As Mr. Wright came within hearing, the old Calvinist was exclaiming, 
' ' Thank Goil for that ! 1 am glad of it. Thank God they have risen at 
last ! " Inquiring wdiat the news was. Squire Hudson replied, " Why, the 
slaves have risen down in Virginia, and are fighting for their freedom as 
we did for ours. I pri^' God they may get it." This was the " Southamp- 
ton massacre" of Aug. 23, 1831, in which Nat Turner, with six fellow- 
slaves, raised a revolt in Southampton County, on the edge of the Dismal 
Swamp in Virginia, and had killed more than fifty whites, without the loss 
of a single follower, when his band was dispersed on the 25th of August. 
Turner escaped arrest for eight weeks longer, but was captured Oct. 30, 
1831, tried November 5, and hanged November 11, almost exactly twenty- 
eight years before John Brown's execution, Dec. 2, 1859. 



1826.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 35 

with the garden and orchard around it whicli he laid out. In the 
rear of the house was then a wood, now gone, on a knoll leading 
down to the hrook wliich supplied the tan-pits. I was born in an 
older log-house. When I was four or five years old, and probably no 
later than 1825, there came one night a fugitive slave and his wife 
to father's door, — sent, perhaps, by some townsman who knew John 
Brown's compassion for such wayfarers, then but few. They were 
the first colored people I had seen ; and when the woman took me 
up on her knee and kissed me, I ran away as quick as I could, 
and ruhhed my face ' to get the black ofi"; ' for I thought she would 
' crock ' me, like mother's kettle. Mother gave the poor creatures 
some supper ; but they thought themselves pursued, and were un- 
easy. Presently father heard the trampling of horses crossing a 
bridge on one of the main roads, lialf a mile ofi"; so he took his guests 
out the back door and down into the swamp near the bnjok, to hide, 
giving them arms to defend themselves, but returning to the house 
to await the event. It proved a false alarm : the horsemen were 
people of the neighborhood going to Hudson village. Father then 
went out into the dark wood, — for it was night, — and had some 
difficulty in finding his fugitives ; finally he was guided to the spot 
by the sound of the man's heart throbbing for fear of capture. He 
brought them into the house again, sheltered them awhile, and sent 
them on their way." 

At this time John Brown could not have been more than 
twenty-six years old. The children of his first marriage 
were born, married, and died as follows : — 

John Brown, Jr., born July 25, 1S21, at Hudson, Ohio ; 
married Wealthy C. Hotchkiss, July, 1847. 

Jason Brown, Jan. 19, 1823, at Hudson ; married Ellen 
Sherbondy, July, 1847. 

Owen Brown, Nov. 4, 1824, at Hudson (never married). 

Frederick Ik-own (1), Jan, 9, 1827, at Kiohmond, Pa.; 
died March 31, 1831. 

Kuth Brown, Feb. 18, 1829, at Kichmond, Pa. ; married 
Henry Thompson, Sept. 26, 1850. 

Frederick Brown (2), Dec. 31, 1830, at Richmond, Pa. ; 
murdered at Ossawatomie by Eev. Martin White, Aug. 30, 
1856. 

An infant son, Aug. 7, 1832 ; was buried with his mother 
three days after his birth, at Eichmond, Pa. 

A letter of John Brown to his father, of which only a 



36 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

portion is preserved, describes the death of his first wife in 
the most touching manner. Her character has already been 
given in the fragmentary autobiography, and in the recollec- 
tions of her brother, Milton Lusk. She was descended 
through her mother (iVIary Adams, of West Stockbridge, 
Mass., daughter of John Adams, an army contractor in the 
Eevolution) from the same ancestors as John Adams the 
second President, and Samuel Adams the Eevolutionary 
patriot.^ Of the seven children above-named, the four 
eldest are still living (1885), — John and Owen at Put-in- 
Bay Island, Ohio ; and Jason and Euth (who married a New 
Hampshire farmer's son, Henry Thompson, at North Elba, 
N. Y.) at Pasadena, Cal. I am indebted to all of them for 
many details of their father's career, and many letters 

1 lu December, 1867, John Brown, Jr., copied the following recoid from 
the Lusk family Bible in the possession of Judge Stephen H. Pitkin, hus- 
band of his aunt Julia Lusk, by which it appears that Mary (Adams) 
Lusk was five years older than her husband, and was a widow when Cap- 
tain Lusk married her : — 

Amos Lusk, born Thursday, March 6, 1773 ; Mary (Hull) Lusk (his 
wife), born Sunday, May 15, 1768 ; Sophia Hull, born Wednesday, April 
29, 1789 ; Laura Hull, born Thursday, Dec. 8, 1791 ; Minerva Lusk, born 
Sunday, Oct. 18, 1795 ; Maria Lusk, born Sunday, June 27, 1797 ; Loring 
Lusk, born Tuesday, June 3, 1799 ; Dianthe Lusk, born Monday, Jan. 12, 
1801 ; Milton Adams Lusk, born Thursday, June 2, 1803 ; Julian H. 
Lusk, born Monday, Sept. 16, 1805 ; So])hia H. Lusk, born Thursday, 
July 28, 1808 ; Julia Lusk, born Saturday, Feb. 10, 1810 ; Edward Lusk, 
born Tuesday, Dec. 31, 1811 ; Laura Hull, married Sept. 23, 1810 ; Amos 
Lusk, died May 24, 1813; Dianthe Lusk Brown, died Aug. 10, 1832 ; 
Mary Lusk, wife of Amos Lusk, died Jan. 20, 1843. 

Captain Lusk removed to Ohio from East Bloomfield, N. Y., with his 
family, then consisting of his wife and her six children (including Sophia 
and Laura Hull by her first husband), -in 1801. Several families, includ- 
ing his sister's (Mrs. Hannah Lindley), made up the omigiating party. 
Buffalo was then a small village, and Ohio almost an unbroken wilderness. 
On their journej^ while stopping at a tavern, an incident occurred which 
came near terminating tlie life of Dianthe Lusk, then a baby six weeks ol<l. 
While the mother was preparing food for their breakfast, the father, anx- 
ious to move on in the morning, proceeded to gather up^the bedding, on 
which, unperceived by him, the baby was lying. Pillow's, blankets, etc., 
were thrown on the feather-bed, and ([uickly tied together with a rope, and 
the whole hastily rolled downstairs. The mother, recollecting where .she 
had left her baby, gave the alarm, but by the time it could be uncovered 
it was nearly lifeless. 



1856.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 37 

which concern the family. Euth, the only daughter of the 
first marriage, gives me these incidents of her early re- 
collections : — 

" Father used to hold all his children, while they were little, at 
night, and sing his favorite songs, one of which was, ' Blow ye the 
trumpet, blow!' One evening after he had been singing to me, he 
asked me how I would like to have some poor little black children 
that were slaves (explaining to me the meaning of slaves) come and 
live with us ; and asked me if I would be willing to divide my food 
and clothes with them. He made such an impression on my sympa- 
thies, that the first colored person I ever saw (it was a man I met on 
the street in Meadville, Peuu.,) I felt sucli pity for him that I wanted 
to ask him if he did not want to come and live at our house. When 
I was six or seven years old, a little incident took place iu the church 
at Franklin, Ohio (of which all the older part of our family were 
members), which caused quite an excitement. Father hired a col- 
ored man and his wife to work for him, — he on the farm, and she in 
the house. They were very respectable people, and we thought a 
great deal of them. One Sunday the woman went to church, and 
was seated near the door, or somewhere back. This aroused father's 
indignation at once. He asked both of them to go the next Sunday ; 
they followed the family in, and he seated them in his pew. The 
whole congregation were shocked ; the minister looked angry ; but I 
remember father's firm, determined look. The whole church were 
down on him then." She adds : " My brothers were so disgusted to 
see such a mockery of religion that they left the church, and have 
never belonged to another." 

This daughter remembers when she was admitted to the 
church, in Richmond, by baptism. She says : — 

''The first recollection I have of father was being carried through 
a piece of woods on Sunday, to attend a meeting held at a neighbor's 
house. After we had been at the house a little while, father and 
mother stood up and held ns, while the minister put water on our 
faces. After we sat down, father wiped my face with a brovA'n silk 
handkerchief with yellow spots on it in diamond shape. It seemed 
beautiful to me, and I thought how good he was to wipe my face 
with that pretty handkerchief. He showed a great deal of tenderness 
in that and other ways. He sometimes seemed very stern and strict 
with me ; yet his tenderness made me ft)rget that he was stern. He 
told me, a few years before his death, to reason calmly with my chil- 
dren M'hen they had done wrong, and in that way encourage them 



38 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1847. 

to be truthful; aud never to puuisli them, whatever they had done, 
if they told the truth about it. Said he : ' If 1 had my life to live 
over again, I should do very differently vi'ith my children. I meant 
to do right, but I can see novr vrhere I failed.' 

" Whenever he and I were alone, he never failed to give me the 
best of advice, just such as a true and anxious mother would give a 
daughter. He always seemed interested in my work, aud would 
come around and look at it, when I was sewing or knitting ; ami 
wlien I was learning to spin lie always praised me, if he saw that I 
was improving. He used to say : ' Try to do whatever you do in the 
very best possible manner.' " ♦ 

Writing to Eutli wlien she was eighteen years old, her 
father said : — 

'' I will just tell you what questions exercise my mind in regard to 
an absent daughter, and I vvill arrange them somewhat in urder as 
I feel most their importance. 

'' What feelings and motives govern hei' ? In what manner does 
she spend her time ? Who are her associates? How does she con- 
duct in word and action ? Is she improving generally f Is she pro- 
vided for with such things as she needs, or is she in wautf Does 
she enjoy herself, or is she lonely and sad? Is she among real 
friends, or is she disliked and despised"? 

" Such are some of the questions which arise in the mind of a certain 
anxious father ; and if you have a satisfactory answer to them in 
your own mind, he can rest satisfied." 

The testimony of all John Brown's children is the same 
respecting his domestic life and his affection for them. 
His daughter has perhaps related more particulars of his 
home life, because she saw it .more constantly, — having 
seldom been separated from him until her marriage, except 
by his long absences upon business, of which more will be 
said hereafter. She thus describes his reading and his 
family worship, as she remembers it : — 

" My dear fatlier's favorite books, of a liistorical character, were 
' R((lliu's Ancient History,' Josephus, Plutarch, ' Napoleon and 
his Marshals,' and the Life of Oliver Cromwell. Of religious 
books, 13axtei''s ' Saints' Rest ' (in speakiug of whicli at one time he 
said he could not see how any person could read it through carefully 
without becoming a Christian), the ' Pilgrim's Progress,' and Henry 
' On Meekness.' But above all others, the Bible was his favorite 
volume ; and he had such a perfect knowledge of it, that when any 



1840. 



YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 39 



person was reading it, he would correct the least mistake. His 
favorite passages were these, as near as I can remember : — 

" ' Keinember them that are in bonds as bound with them.' 

" ' Wlioso stoppeth his ear at the cry of the poor, he also shall 
cry himself, but shall not be heard.' 

" ' He tliat hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth his 
bread to the poor. ' 

" ' A good, name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and 
loving favor rather than silver or gold.' 

" ' Whoso mocketh the poor, reproacheth his Maker; and he that 
is glad at calamities, shall not be unpunished.' 

" 'He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth to the Lord, and that 
which he hath given will He pay to him again.' 

'' * Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would 
borrow of thee turn nut thou away.' 

" ' A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; but the tender 
mercies of the wicked ai'e cruel.' 

'' ' Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in 
the power of thine hand to do it.' 

" ' Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build 
it; except the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman walketh in 
vain.' 

" * I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love.' 

'' The last chapter of Ecclesiastes was a favorite one, and on Fast- 
days and Thanksgivings he used very often to read the fifty-eighth 
chapter of Isaiah. 

" When he would come home at night, tired out with labor, he 
would, before going to bed, ask some of the family to read chapters 
(as was his usual course night and morning); and would almost 
always say, *Eead one of David's Psalms.' 

"His favorite hymns (Watts's) were these: 'Blow ye the trum- 
pet, blow ! ' ' Sweet is Thy word, my God, my King! ' ' I '11 praise 
my Maker with my breath ; ' 'Oh, happy is the man who hears ! ' 
' Why should we start, and fear to die ! ' ' With songs and honors 
sounding loud ; ' ' Ah, lovely appearance of death ! ' " 

John Brown, Jr., says that the first time he ever saw his 
father kneel in prayer was when he communicated to the 
older children (about 1837) his purpose to make active war 
upon slavery, and then implored the blessing of God upon 
such an undertaking, and His pity for the oppressed slaves. 
The three sons entered into a solemn compact with their 
father to labor for emancipation ; and when, in 1838, and 



40 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOILN BROWN. [1834. 

subsequently, John the eldest sou went from home to get 
a better education, his father said " he had lost one of the 
main spokes of his wheel." Owen Brown, like his son, 
was fervent in prayer ; and it was noticed that he, though 
a sad stammerer in conversation, spoke much more clearly 
in prayer. 

There was always great tenderness and delicacy in John 
Brown's conduct towards his family, notwithstanding the 
natural austerity of his character. In childhood he gov- 
erned them strictly, not sparing the rod ; bvit no sooner 
were they men and women than he ceased to command and 
almost to request their obedience, but left it for them to be 
persuaded in their own minds towards any course he wished 
them to take. He very early imparted to them his own 
fixed purposes in regard to slavery, and sought their co- 
operation, which they readily gave. Ruth's reminiscences 
show this, and so also does this curious letter, written and 
franked by John Brown when he was postmaster, under 
President Jackson, at Randolph, Pa.^ 

John Brown to his brother Frederick. 

Randolph, Nov. 21, 1834. 

Dear Brother, — As I have had only one letter from Hudson 
since you left here, and that some weeks since, I begin to get uneasy 
and appreliensive that all is not well. I had satisfied my mind ahout 
it for some time, in expectation of seeing fixther here, but I begin to 
give that up for the present. Since you left me I have been trying 
to devise some means whereby I might do something in a practical 
way for my poor fellow-men who are in bondage, and having fully 
consulted the feelings of my wife and my three boys, we have agreed 
to get at least one negro boy or youth, and bring him up as we do our 
own, — viz., give him a good EngUsli education, learn him what we 
can about the history of the w^orld, about business, about general 
subjects, and, above all, try to teach him the fear of God. We think 
of three ways to obtain one : First, to try to get some Christian slave- 
holder to release one to us. Second, to get a free one if no one will 
let us have one that is a slave. Third, if that does not succeed, we 

1 The town of Randolph in which it was written, and where John Brown 
was appointed postmaster in the administration of ,Tohn Quincy Adams, 
seems to have inckided Richmond, whieli is now a separate town. 



1834.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 41 

have all agreed to submit to considerable privation in order to buy 
one. This we are now usiug means in order to effect, in the con- 
fident expectation that God is about to bring them all out of the 
house of bondage. 

I will just mention that when this subject was first introduced, 
Jason had gone to bed ; but no sooner did he hear the thing hinted, 
than his warm heart kindled, and he turned out to have a part in the 
discussion of a subject of such exceeding interest. I have for years 
been trying to devise some way to get a school a-going here for 
blacks, and I think that on many accounts it would be a most favor- 
able location. Children here would have no intercourse with vicious 
people of their own kind, nor with openly vicious persons of any 
kind. There would be no powerful opposition influence against 
such a thing ; and should there be any, I believe the settlement might 
be so effected in future as to have almost the whole iutiuence of the 
place in favor of such a school. Write me how you would like to 
join me, and try to get on from Hudson and thereabouts some first- 
rate abolitionist families with you. I do honestly beheve that our 
united exertions alone might soon, with the good hand of our God 
upon us, effect it all. , 

This has been with me a favorite theme of reflection for years. I 
think that a place which might be in some measure settled with a 
view to such an object would be much more favorable to such an 
undertaking than would any such place as Hudson, with all its con- 
flicting interests and feelings ; and I do think such advantages ought 
to be afforded the young blacks, whether they are all to be imme- 
diately set free or not. Perhaps we might, under God, in that way 
do more towards breaking their yoke effectually than in any other. 
If the young blacks of our country could once become enlightened, it 
would most assuredly operate on slavery like firing powder confined 
in rock, and all slaveholders know it well. Witness their heaven- 
daring laws against teaching blacks. If once the Christians in the 
free States would set to work in earnest in teaching the blacks, the 
people of the slaveholding States would find themselves constitu- 
tionally driven to set about the work of emancipation immediately. 
The laws of this State are now such that the inhabitants of any 
township may raise by a tax in aid of the State school-fund any 
amount of money they may choose by a vote, for the purpose of 
common schools, which any child may have access to by application. 
If you will join me in tliis undertaking, I will make witli you any 
arrangement of our temporal concerns that shall be fair. Our health 
is good, and our prospects about business rather brightening. 

Aftectionately yours, 

John Brown. 



42 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1833. 

Kandolph is in Crawford County, Penn., and now contains 
some two thousand inhabitants ; but in 1834 it was very 
thinly settled. John Brown was one of the chief persons 
there ; he managed a large tannery in the present township 
of Richmond, and the school of the settlement had been at 
one time kept for part of the year in his great log-house, 
near the tan-yard. His proposition to his brother Fred- 
erick,^ who then lived with or near his father in Hudson, 
Ohio, was in effect to remove to Richmond, and take part 
in a plan for settling colored families there, with a view to 
their better education, before their race should be emanci- 
pated. At this time it was a penal offence in most of the 
slave States to teach them to read, and practically it was so 
in some free States. In the year preceding the date of this 
letter, the State of Connecticut (in consequence of the ad- 
mission by Miss Prudence Crandall of colored girls to her 
private school in Canterbury) passed a law (May 24, 1833) 
that no school should be established in any town in Connec- 
ticut for the education of colored persons from other towns, 
"without the consent in writing, first obtained of a majority 
of the civil authority, and the selectmen of the town." 
Under this law Miss Crandall was arrested and sent to jail ; 
and during that year (1833) her house was set on fire, and 
she was otherwise so persecuted by the people of Canter- 
bury that she was forced to give up her school about a year 
before the above letter of John Brown was written. 

It was while Brown was living at Randolph (now Rich- 
mond) that he was married a second time, July 11, 1833, 
to Mary Anne Day, daughter of Charles Day, of "Whitehall, 
N. Y., but then living at Troy, Penn. She survived him 
twenty-five years, and died in San Francisco, in 1884.^ Her 
children were thirteen in number, of whom seven died in 
early childhood ; two were killed at Harper's Ferry, and 
four, — Salmon, Anne, Sarah, and Ellen, — are still living 

1 This letter is thus addressed and post-marked : — 

Eandolph, Pa. Free. 

Nov. 22. /. Broicn, P. M. 

Mr. Frederipk Brown, 

Hudson, Portage Co., Ohio. 

2 February 29. 



1834.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 43 

in California with their children and grandchildren. The 
record of this whole family is as follows : — 

CHILDREN OF JOHN BROWN AND HIS WIFE MARY. 

Sarah Brown, born May 11, 1834, at Kichmond, Pa. ; died 
Sept.. 23, 1843. 

Watson Brown, born Oct. 7, 1835, at Franklin, Ohio; 
married Isabella M. Thompson, September, 1856 ; killed at 
Harper's Ferry, Oct. 19, 1859. 

Salmon Brown, born Oct. 2, 1836, at Hudson, Ohio ; mar- 
ried Abbie C. Hinckley, Oct. 15, 1857. 

Charles Brown, born Nov. 3, 1837, at Hudson, Ohio ; died 
Sept. 11, 1843. 

Oliver Brown, born March 9, 1839, at Franklin, Ohio; 
married Martha E. Brewster, April 7, 1858 ; killed at Har- 
per's Ferr}-, Oct. 17, 1859. 

Peter Brown, born Dec. 7, 1840, at Hudson, Ohio ; died 
Sept. 22, 1843. 

Austin Brown, born Sept. 14, 1842, at Eichfield, Ohio ; 
died Sept. 27, 1843. 

Anne Brown, born Dec. 23, 1843, at Eichfield, Ohio. 

Amelia Brown, born June 22, 1845, at Akron, Ohio ; died 
Oct. 30, 1846. 

Sarah Brown, born Sept. 11, 1846, at Akron, Ohio. 

Ellen Brown, born May 20, 1848, at Springfield, Mass. ; 
died April 30, 1849. 

Infant son, born April 26, 1852, at Akron, Ohio ; died May 
17, 1852. 

Ellen Brown, born Sept. 25, 1854, at Akron, Ohio.^ 

The loss of so many children in their early years was a 
sore trial to John Brown, and is often mentioned in his 
family letters. In their illness he was a devoted nurse, and 

1 It was at the house of this youngest daughter, Mrs. Ellen Fablinger, 
of Saratoga, Cal., that the widow of John Brown spent the last years of her 
life ; but she died in San Francisco, under the care of her daughter Sarah, 
after a painful illness. Miss Sarah Brown resides in San Francisco ; Mrs. 
Anne Brown Adams, in Eohnerville, Humboldt County; and Salmon 
Brown, farther north, in the same county, where he keeps sheep, as his 
father did in Ohio. 



44 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN, [1848. 

he had acquired much skill in the care of all invalids. Con- 
cerning the death of his first daughter Ellen, in April, 1849, 
Mrs. Thompson thus writes : — 

" In the fall of 1848, father and mother, with oiu- youngest sister, 
a babe of six mouths old, visited a brother of Mrs. Brown (Orson 
Day), who was then living at Whitehall, N. Y., — she stopping there 
with the child, while father went into the Adirondac wilderness to 
North Elba. He was charmed with the grand mountain scenery, 
and felt that he was needed there to encourage and lielp by his expe- 
rience the few colored families who had already settled in the wilder- 
ness, and those who might move there the following spring. Here 
M^as an opportunity also to train some of the bravest of those men for 
the great woi'k which had been his life-long study. He went back 
to Springfield much encouraged. While on their journey back the 
little babe took a violent cohl that ended in quick consumption, and 
she died at the end of April, 1849. Father showed much tenderness 
in the care of the little sufferer. He spared no pains in doing all 
that medical skill could do for her, together with the tenderest care 
and nursing. The time that he could be at home was mostly spent 
in cariijg for her. He sat up nights to keep an even temperature in 
the room, and to relieve mother from the constant care which she had 
through the day. He iised to walk with the child and sing to her so 
much that she soon learned his step. When she heard him coming 
up the steps to the door, she would reach out her hands and cry for 
him to take her. When his business at the wool store crowded him 
so much that he did not have time to take her, he would steal around 
through the wood-shed into the kitchen to eat his dinner, and not go 
into the dining-room, where she could see or hear him. I used to be 
cliarmed myself with his singing to her. He noticed a change in her 
one morning, and told us he thought she would not live through the 
day, and came home several times to see her. A little before noon he 
came home, and looked at her and said, ' Slie is almost gone.' She 
heard him sjieak, opened her eyes, and put up her little wasted hands 
with such a pleading look for him to take her that he lifted her from 
the cradle, with the pillows slie was lying on, and carried her until she 
died. He was very calm, closed her eyes, folded her hands, and laid 
her in her cradle. When she was buried, father broke down com- 
pletely, and sobbed like a child. It was very affecting to see him so 
overcome, when all the time before his great tender heart had tried 
to comfort our weary, sorrowing mother, and all of us." 

It was not the toniponil welfare and liappiness of his 
children that lay nearest the heart of Brown : their spirit- 



1852.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 45 

ual interests, their religious state, were much more a care to 
him. His letters show this constantly ; and in one written 
to his oldest daughter three years later (January, 1852), his 
anxiety finds expression in these words : — 

" My attachments to this world have been very strong, and Divine 
Providence has been cutting me loose, one cord after another. Up 
to the present time, notwithstanding I have so much to remind me 
that all ties must soon be severed, I am still clinging, like those who 
have hardly taken a single lesson. I really hope some of my family 
may understand that this world is not the home of man, and act in 
accordance. Why may I not hope this of you ? When I look for- 
ward, as regards the religious prospects of my numerous family, — 
the most of them, — I am forced to say, and feel too, that I have 
little, very little, to cheer. That this should be so is, I perfectly well 
understand, the legitimate fruit of my own planting ; and that only 
increases my punishment. Some ten or twelve years ago I was 
cheered with the belief that my elder children had chosen the Lord 
to be their God, and I relied much on their influence and example 
in atoning for my deficiency and bad example with the younger 
children. But where are we now 1 Several have gone -where neither 
a good nor a bad example from me will better their condition or 
prospects, or make them worse. I will not dwell longer on this 
distressing subject, but only say that, so far as I have gone, it is 
from no disposition to reflect on any one but myself. I think I can 
clearly discover where I wandered from the road. How now to get 
on it with my family is beyond my ability to see or my courage to 
hope. God grant you thorough conversion from sin, and full purpose 
of heart to continue steadfast in his way, through the very short 
season you will have to pass." 

The earlier letters of Brown to his elder children contain 
many remarks of this character ; and there is one long letter 
to his son John, mainly made up of Scripture texts arranged 
so as to bring forcibly to the young man's mind the Calvin- 
istic theology, point by point, — its terrors as well as its 
promises. Here it is : — 

Akron, Ohio, Aug. 26, 1853. 

Dear son John, — Your letter of the 21st instant was received 
yesterday, and as I may be somewhat more lengthy than usual I begin 
my answer at once. The family have enjoyed as good health as 
usual since I wrote before, but my own health has been poor since 



46 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1853. 

in May. Father has had a short turn of fever and ague ; Jason and 
Ellen have had a good deal of it, and were not very stout on Sunday 
last. The wheat crop has been rather light in this quarter; first 
crop of grass liglit ; oats very poor ; corn and potatoes promise well, 
and frequent rains have given the late grass a fine start. There has 
been some very fatal sickness about, but the season so far has been 
middling healthy. Our sheep and cattle have done well; have raised 
five hundred and fifty lambs, and expect about eighty cents per pound 
for our wool. We shall be glad to have a visit from you about the 
time of our county fair, but I do not yet know at what time it comes. 
Got a letter from Henry dated the 16th of August ; all there well. 
Grain crops there very good. We are preparing (in our minds, at 
least) to go back next spring. Mrs. Perkins was confined yesterday 
with another boy, it being her eleventh child. The understanding 
between the two families continues much as formerly, so far as I 
know. 

In Talmadge there has been for some time an unusual seriousness 
and attention to future interests. In your letter you appear rather 
disposed to sermonize ; and how will it operate on you and Wealthy 
if I should pattern after you a little, and also quote some from the 
Bible ? In choosing my texts, and in quoting from the Bible, I per- 
haps select the very portions which "another portion" of my family 
hold are not to be wholly received as true. I forgot to say that my 
younger sons (as is common in this "progressive age") appear to 
be a little in advance of my older, and have thrown off the old 
shackles entirely; after thorough and candid investigation they 
have discovered the Bible to be all a fiction ! Shall I add, that 
a letter received from you some time since gave me little else than 
pain and sorrow? "The righteous shall hold on his way;" "By 
and by he is ofi"ended." 

My object at this time is to recall your particular attention to the 
fact that the earliest, as well as all other, writers of the Bible seem 
to have been impressed with such ideas of the character of the religion 
they taught, as led them to ajiprehend a want of steadfastness among 
those who might profess to adhere to it (no matter what may have 
been the motives of the different writers). Accordingly we find the 
writer of the first five books putting into the mouth of his Moses ex- 
pressions like the following, — and tliey all appear to dwell much on 
the idea of two distinct classes among their re})uted discijdes; namely, 
a genuine and a spurious class : — 

"Lest there should be among you man, or woinan, or family, or 
tribe, whose heart tumeth away this day from the Lord our God, to 
serve the gods of these nations ; lest there should be among you a 
root that beareth gall and wormwood." " Then men shall say, 



1853.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 47 

because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their 
fathers." " But if thine heart, turn away so that thou wilt not hear, 
but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them." 
" Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it to the chil- 
dren of Israel ; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness 
for me against the children of Israel." " For I know that after my 
death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way 
which I have commanded you." " They have c<.)rrupted themselves, 
their spot is not the s]iot of his children." " Of the Eock that begat 
thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee." 
'' Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would 
consider their latter end ! " 

The writer here makes his Moses to dwell on this point with a 
most remarkable solicitude, a most lieart-moving earnestness. The 
writer of the next book makes his Joshua to plead with Israel with 
the same earnestness. " Choose you this day whom you will serve." 
" Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the 
Lord, to serve him." The writer of the book called Judges uses 
strong language in regard to the same disposition iu Isi-ael to back- 
slide : " And it came to pass when the judge was dead, that they 
returned and coiTupted themselves more than their fathers; they 
ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way." 
The writer of the book Ruth makes Naomi say to Orpah, '' Thy 
sister-in-law is gone back unto her people and unto her gods." The 
wiiter of the books called Samuel represents Saul as one of the same 
spurious class. Samuel is made to say to him, " Behold, to obey is 
better than sacrifice; and to hearken, than the fat of rams," — clearly 
intimating that all service that did not flow from an obedient spirit 
and an lionest heart would be of no avail. He makes his Saul turn 
out'faithless and treacherous in the end, and finally consult a woman 
" having a familiar spirit," near the close of his sad career. The 
same writer introduces Ahitophel as one whose counsel " was as if 
a man had inquired at the oracle of God;" a writer of the Psalms 
makes David say of him, '' We took sweet counsel together, and 
walked to the house of God in company ; " but he is left advising the 
son of David to incest publicly, and soon after hangs himself. The 
spot of those men seems not to be genuine. 

One distinguishing mark of unsoundness with all the Old Testa- 
ment writers was aversion to the character of the God whom Moses 
declares in his books, and by whose direction all the so-called proph- 
ets affirmed that they spoke and wrote. The writer of the books 
called Kings says of Solomon: "And the Lord was angry with 
Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord God of 
Israel, which had appeared to him twice." The same writer makes 



48 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1853. 

Elijah inquire of Israel : '' How long halt ye between two opinions? 
If the Lord be God, follow him ; but if Baal, then follow him." He 
makes Elijah pray thus: "Hear me, O Lord! hear me, that this 
people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast 
turned their heart back again." The same writer makes God say 
to Elijah, " Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the 
knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath 
not kissed him." The same wa-iter makes John say, " Come with 
me and see my zeal for the Lord ; '' but says of him afterward, " But 
John took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with 
all his heart." This writer also says of Josiah, " And like unto him 
there was no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his 
heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all 
the law of Mtises ; neither after him arose there any like him." The 
writer of the book called Chronicles says of Judah, in a time of most 
remarkable reformation: "And they sware unto the Loi'd with a 
loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets ; 
And all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had swoni with all their 
heart, and sought hira with their whole desire, and he was found of 
them, and the Lord gave them rest round about." Those who wrote 
the books called Ezra and Nehemiah notice the same distinguishing 
marks of character. 

The writer of the book called Job, makes God to say of him : 
" Th(>re is none like hi.m in the earth; a perfect and an upright man, 
one Avho fearetli God and escheweth evil, and still he holdeth fast his 
integrity." Tlie same writer makes Elipliaz put to Job these ques- 
tions, remarkable, but searching: "Is not this thy fear, thy confi- 
dence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?" This writer 
makes his different characters call the unstable and unsound, hypo- 
crites. Bildad says, " So are the paths of all that forget God, and 
tlie hypocrite's hope shall perish. Whose hope shall be cut off, and 
whose trust shall be a spider's web.'' ifophar says of the same class 
of persons, " And tlieir hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost." 
EUphaz says, "Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for 
vanity shall be his recompense." Joli says, "I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, whom I shall sec for myself, and mine eyes behold, 
and not another." Zophar says, " The trinm]diing of the wicked is 
short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment." Job is made 
to inquire concerning those who deceive themselves (as though the 
thing had come to be well understood in liis day) : " Will he de- 
light himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?" 
One writer of the Psalms says of those who did not love Israel's God, 
" Til rough the pride of his countenance he will not seek after God. 
God is not in all his thoughts." 



1853.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 49 

A writer of the Psalms, iu view of the diflferent feelings of men 
toward tlie God of the Bible, has this lauguage : " With the mer- 
ciful thou wilt show thyself merciful, with ati ujjright man thou wilt 
show thyself upright, with the pure, thou wilt show thyself pure, and 
with tha froward thou wilt show thyself froward." Again iu the 
Psalms we read, "The meek shall eat and be satisfied, they shall 
praise the Lord that seek him." Again, " The meek will he guide 
in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way." " All the paths 
of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and 
testimonies." " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, 
and he will show them his covenant." " Oh, how great is thy good- 
ness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast 
wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men ! " " The 
angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and 
delivereth them." '' The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, 
and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." "Though 
he fall, yet he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth 
him with his hand." " The law of his God is in his heart ; none of 
his steps shall slide." " But the salvation of the righteous is of the 
Lord ; he is their strength in the time of trouble." " Mark the per- 
fect man, and behold the upriglit, for the end of that man is peace." 
"The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of, languishing ; thou 
wilt make all his bed iu his sickness." " Our heart is not turned 
back, neither have our steps declined from thy way." "They go 
from strength to strength ; every one of them in Zion appear before 
God." " Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall 
offend them." "Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect 
unto all thy commandments." " If I forget thee, Jerusalem ! let 
my right hand forget her cunning." " The backslider in heart shall 
be filled with his own ways." "To the law and to the testimony ! if 
they speak not according to their word, it is because there is no light 
in them." " Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers 
found in me that they are gone far from me, and have walked after 
vanity, and have become vain ? " " Turn, back-sliding children, 
saith the Lord." "But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, 
but walked in the counsels and in the imaginations of their evil 
heart, and went backward and not forward." " Yea, the stork in 
the heaven knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle and the crane 
and the swallow observe the time of their coming, but my people 
know not the judgment of the Lord. " " The heart is deceitful above 
all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" " Tliy 
prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee, and they have 
not discovered thine iniquity." " They that observe lying vanities 
forsake their own mercy." "Then they shall answer, Because they 

4 



50 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JO FIN BROWN. 11853. 

have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God." " Forty years 
long was I grieved with this generation, and said it is a people that 
do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways." " But 
the^ like men have transgressed the covenant ; there have they dealt 
treacherously against me." " Many shall he [lurified and made white 
and tried, but the wicked shall do wickedly ; and none of the wicked 
shall understand, but the wise shall understand." " The preacher 
sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was 
upright, even words of truth." ''That the generation to come miglit 
know them, even the children which should be born, who should 
arise and declare them to their children ; that they might set their 
hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his coui- 
maudments ; and might not be as then- fathers, a stubborn and re- 
bellious generation ; a generation that set not their heart aright, and 
whose spirit was not steadfast with God." " Who is wise and shall 
understand these tlungs; prudent, and he shall know them ? For the 
ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them ; but the 
transgressor shall fall therein." 

" Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, hhn will I also 
confess before my Father which is in Heaven." " And many false 
prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many ; and because inicpity 
shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." '^ And blessed is he 
whosoever shall not be offended in me." '' They on the rock are 
they which when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these 
have no root, and for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall 
away." " From that time many of his disciples went back, and 
walked no more with him." " He that rejecteth me, and receiveth 
not my words, hath one that judgeth him : the word that I have 
spoken, the same shall judge liim at the last day." "Every branch 
in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away." " But if our gospel 
be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." " I marvel tliat ye are so 
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Cln'ist, 
unto another gospel." "Ye did run well: who did hinder you that 
ye should not (d)ey the truth '? " "Beware lest any man spoil you 
through philosopliy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after 
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." " For now we 
live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." " For the time will come when 
they will not endure sound doctrine." " Therefore we ought to give 
the more earnest heed to the things wliich we have heard, lest at any 
time we should let them slip." " Let us therefore fear lest a promise 
being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come 
short of it." "And we desire that every one of you do show the 
same diligence to th(^ full assurance of hope unto the end; that ye be 
not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience 



1853. 



YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 51 



inherit the promises." " Now the just shall live by faith ; hut if any 
man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." " And this 
I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge 
and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent, 
that may bo sincere and without offence till the day of Christ." "And 
make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned 
out of the way, but let it rather be healed." " Looking diligently 
lest any man fail of the grace of God." " For it had been better for 
them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they 
have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto 
them." " Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou 
hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art 
fallen, and repent." *' Be watchful, and strengthen the things which 
remain and are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect 
before God." " He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in 
white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of 
life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his 
angels." " Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, 
lest he walk naked and they see his shame. Amen." '' And I 
beseech you [children] to sutler the word of exhortation." 

Akron, Ohio, Sept. 23, 1853. 

Dear Children. — It is now nearly a month since I began on 
another page. Since writing before, father has seemed quite well, 
but Jason, Ellen, Owen, and Frederick have all had more or less of 
the ague. They were as well as usual, for them, yesterday. Others 
of the family are in usual health. I did mean that my letter should 
go off at once, but I have not become very stout, and have a great 
deal to look after, and have had many inten'uptions. We liave done 
pai't of our sowing, and expect to get all our corn (of which we have 
a good crop) secure from frost tliis day. We shall be glad to see you 
here at the time of our county fair, which is to be on the twelfth and 
thirteenth of October. 

I hope that through the infinite grace and mercy of God you may 
be brought to see the error of your ways, and be in earnest to turn 
many to righteousness, instead of leading astray ; and then you might 
prove a gi-eat blessing to Essex County, or to any place where your 
lot may fall. I do not feel " estranged from my children," but I 
cannot flatter them, nor "cry peace when there is no peace." My 
wife and Oliver expect to set out for Pennsylvania before long, and 
will probably call on you ; but pr<ibably not until after the fair. We 
have a nice lot of chickens fattening for you, when you come. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 



52 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1837. 

The blending of spiritual and worldly considerations in 
this apostolic epistle is characteristic. The kingdom of 
heaven and the affairs of earth were closely associated in 
John Brown's mind, as in Cromwell's. He could trust in 
God and keep his powder dry. The explanation of his son's 
indifference to the Calvinistic Church and its Bible-worship 
is not wholly discreditable to the young man, however ; and 
since John BroAvn, Jr., has not only furnished me this let- 
ter, but has related the origin of his coldness towards the 
churches, I will quote his words. He says : — 

" About 1837 mother, Jason, Owen, and I joined the Congrega- 
tional Chnrch at Franklin, the Rev. Mr. Burritt pastor. Shortly 
after the other societies, including Methodists and Episcopalians, 
joined ours in an undertaking to hold a protracted meeting under 
the special management of an Evangelist preacher from Cleveland, 
named Avery. The house of the Congregationalists being the largest, 
it was chosen as the place for this meeting. Invitations were sent 
out to Church folks in adjoining towns to ' come up to tlie help of 
the Lord against the mighty ; ' and soon the house was crowded, the 
assembly occupying by invitation the pews of the church generally. 
Preacher Avery gave us in succession four sermons from one text, — 
' Cast ye up, cast ye up ! Prepare ye the way of the Lord ; make 
his paths straight ! ' Soon lukewarm Cliristians were heated up to a 
melting condition, and there was a bright prospect of a good shcnver 
of sjrace. There were at that time in Franklin a number of free 
colored persons and some fugitive slaves. These became interested 
and came to the meetings, but were given seats by themselves, where 
the stove had stood, near the door, — not a good place for seeing 
ministers or singers. Father noticed this, and when the next meet- 
ing (which Avas at evening) had fairly opened, he rose and called 
attention to the fact, that, in seating the colored portion of the au- 
dience, a discrimination had been made, and said that he did not 
believe God is ' a respecter of jiersons.' He then invited the colored 
people to occupy his slip. The blacks accepted, and all of our family 
took their vacated seats. This was a bomb-shell, and the Holy 
Spirit in the hearts of Pastor Burritt and Deacon Beach at once 
gave up his place to another tenant. Next day father received a call 
from the Deacons to admonish him and ' labor ' with him ; but they 
returned with new views of Christian duty. The blacks during the 
remainder of that protracted meeting continued to occupy our slip, 
and our iiimily the seats around the stove. We soon after moved to 
Hudson, and though living three miles away, became regular attend- 



1837.] YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 53 

ants at the Congregational Church in the centre of the town. In 
about a year we received a letter from good Deacon WUliams, in- 
forming us that our relations with the church in Franklin were ended 
in accordance with a rule made by the church since we left, that ' any 
member being absent a year without reporting him or herself to that 
church should be cut off.' This was the first intimation we had of 
the existence of the rule. Father, on reading the letter, became 
white with anger. This was my first taste of the proslavery diabo- 
lism that had intrenched itself in the Church, and I shed a few un- 
called for tears over the matter, for instead I should have rejoiced in 
my emancipation. From that date my theological shackles were a 
good deal broken, and I have not worn them since (to speak of), — 
not even for ornament." ^ 

Milton Liisk, the uncle of the elder children of John 
Brown, told me in 1882 that he first separated from the 
Congregational Church in Hudson upon the issue of coloni- 
zation for the colored people, although in his case there 
were other grounds of difference. His brother-in-law never 
" came out " from the Church in the sense of the early aboli- 
tionists, although he censured the subservience of the clergy 
and the laity to the prejudices of the people. Brown's rev- 
erence for the Bible as a divine gift to man and a rule of life 
never faltered, and his ancestral faith was declared as fer- 
vently in his last days of glorious imprisonment as any of 
the Christian martyrs avowed theirs. But he grew more 
tolerant of differences of opinion as he advanced in years, 
and he found no fault with the religion of Theodore Parker, 
though it was so unlike his own. 

1 A shorter account of this affair, as remembered by Ruth Thompson, 
has already been given. 



54 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1826 



CHAPTER III. 
JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 

THE letters of Brown to his father, already cited, show 
that he was diligent in his worldly calling. His 
vocations were various, as is customary with Americans 
of New England origin, — and with all his higher quali- 
ties, John Brown was a true Yankee. His autobiography 
shows how active and ambitious he was when a boy ; and 
this activity never deserted him. His father had trained 
him to his own occupation, that of a tanner ; but he 
was also a land-surveyor, lumber-dealer, postmaster, wool- 
grower, breeder and trainer of race-horses, stock-fancier, land 
speculator, farmer, orchardist, wool-factor, wool-sorter, and 
pioneer in a new countr}^, like the Adirondac wilderness 
around Whiteface and Lake Placid. Emerson almost de- 
scribed him when he wrote in his " Self-Reliance " of that 
" sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn 
tries all the professions, — who teams it, farms it, peddles, 
keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Con- 
gress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, 
and always like a cat falls on his feet." This man, says 
Emerson further, "walks abreast of his days, and feels 
no shame in not ' studying a profession ; ' for he does not 
postpone his life, but lives already." 

Following the advice of Franklin, who was one of Brown's 
oracles, he married young, as we have seen, so that his old- 
est son was but twenty-one years younger than himself. 
Having begun thus early to " give hostages of fortune," as 
Bacon says, John Brown devoted himself with diligence to 
his occupation, for the support of his young family. He 
was a tanner and land-surveyor at Hudson until 1825, when 
he moved to Pviehmond, near Meadville, in Pennsylvania, 
and there carried on the same vocations. He remained 
until 1835, then removed to Franklin IVIills, Portage County, 



1837.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 55 

Ohio, and there mingled speculation in land with his tan- 
ning. Upon this point, John Brown, Jr., says : " \^'hen 
the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal was located through Frank- 
lin, father purchased the old Haymaker farm and divided 
it into village lots. In the reverses and pecuniary disas- 
ters of 1836-37, he made an assignment of all his property 
for the benefit of his creditors. His farm in South Kent 
(then Franklin), now covered by valuable residences and 
shops, went with the rest. Those who visit Kent now 
[1884] will see that father's business anticipations were 
only a little in advance of the times." It was at a later 
date that the sale of Brown's farms in Hudson was followed 
by an adventure which has given occasion for some petty 
scandal against him. This has been answered, and the 
affair explained by his son John, as follows : " The farm 
in question father lost by indorsing a note for a friend. It 
was attached and sold by the sheriff at the county seat. 
The only bidder against my father was an old neighbor, 
hitherto regarded as a friend, who became the purchaser. 
Father's lawyer advised him to ' hold the fort ' for a time . 
at least, and endeavor to secure terms from the purchaser. 
There was, as I remember, an old shot-gun in the house, but 
it was not loaded nor pointed at any one. No sheriff came 
on the premises ; no officer or posse was resisted ; no threat 
of violence offered. The purchaser finally swore out a peace 
warrant against father ; and within half an hour after our 
arrest by a constable, he tore down that terrible old log 
fort." 

The bankruptcy of John Brown, to which he alludes in 
several of his letters, and in connection with which he was 
once imprisoned in the county jail at Akron, occurred in 
1842, and the imprisonment was in consequence of this 
affair of the Hudson farm. Among his creditors then was 
the New England Woollen Company at Eockville in Con- 
necticut, to whose agent he gave the following agreement, 
with the letter annexed : — 

Richfield, Oct. 17, 1842. 

Whereas I, John Brown, on or about the 15th day of June, A. D. 
18.39, received of the New England Company (through tlioir agent, 
George Kellogg, Esq.), the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars for 



5Q LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1842. 

the purchase of wool for said couipauy, and imprudently pledged the 
same ft>r my ovvu benefit, and could not redeem it ; and wliereas I 
have been legally discharged from my obligations by the laws of the 
United States, — I hereby agree (in consideration of the great kind- 
ness and tenderness of said Company toward me in my calamity, 
and more particularly of the moral obligation I am under to render 
to all their due), to pay the same and the interest thereon, from 
time to time, as Divine Providence shall enable me to do. Witness 
my hand and seal. 

John Brown. 

Richfield, Summit County, Ohio, Oct. 17, 1842. 

George Kellogg, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — I have just received information of my final discharge 
as a bankrupt in the District Court, and I ought to be grateful tliat 
no one of my creditors has made any opposition to such discharge 
being given. I shall now, if my lite is continued, have an opjxjr- 
tunity of proving the sincerity of my past professions, when legally 
free to act as I choose. I am sorry to say that in consequence of tlie 
unforeseen expense of getting the discharge, the loss of an ox, and 
the destitute condition in which a new surrender of my effects has 
])laced me, witli my numerous family, I fear this year must pass 
witliout my effecting in tlie way of payment what I have encouraged 
you to exiK'Ct (notwithstanding I have been generally prosperous in 
my business for the season). 

liespectfuUy your unworthy friend, 

John Brown. 

These papers show the real integrity of Brown in a trans- 
action where he might have escaped the obligation which he • 
thus assumed. He had not paid the whole of this debt at 
his death in 1859. In his will then made he bequeathed 
fifty dollars toward paying the claim, Avliich the Company 
received and placed to his credit. 

Another of Brown's creditors at a later period was Dwight 
Hopkins, formerly of Ohio, but lately of Montana, who 
followed him to Kansas in 18r)5-.56 to collect some part of 
his debt. He found Brown, as the story goes, '' in a little 
cabin with his toes out of his boots, and nothing but mush 
and milk on the table, — the old man tearfully regretting 
his lack of better entertainment." ^ Hopkins got his pay 

1 Letter of Hosea Paul, of Wabash, Ind., Jan. 17, 1875, from which 
some of the above statements arc taken. 



1844.1 JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 57 

finally ; but that was not always the case with Brown's 
creditors, as we have seen, and shall see. He would seem 
to have been " a visionary man in business affairs, and of a 
restless, speculating disposition, not content with the plod- 
ding details of ordinary trade." As to his wool specula- 
tions. Colonel Simon Perkins, of Akron, when questioned by 
me in 1878 ^ about Brown's wool-growing and wool-dealing, re- 
plied, " The less you say about them the better." I answered 
that the more I knew, the better I should be able to say 
the less. He then said that Brown was a rough herdsman, 
though a good wool-sorter; "in general terms, he was not a 
good shepherd, though a nice judge of the quality of wool." 
He used shepherd dogs, " because it was then the fashion to 
use them, as much for company as anything else ; but they 
did more harm than good." He said he kept but one thou- 
sand five hundred sheep when Brown had charge of them, 
and that he could easily distinguish every sheep from every 
other, for " sheep look about as much alike as men do." 
" Brown took all the care and risk of the flock, and accounted 
to me at the end of the year, when we divided the profits ; 
he was here off and on for ten or twelve years. In the 
wool business at Springfield I furnished the capital ; Brown 
managed according to his own impulses : he would not 
listen to anybody, but did what he took into his head. He 
was solicitous to go into the business of selling wool, and I 
allowed him to do it ; but he had little judgment, always 
followed his own will, and lost much money. His father 
had more judgment and less will. I had no controversy 
with John Brown, for it would have done no good." " Do 

» May" 29, 1878, I visited the large farm of Colonel Perkins, lying just 
outside the city limits of Akron, in the township of Portage, where Brown 
herded sheep as late as 1854. Calling on Colonel Perkins a little before 
noon, I found him walking in his garden, a white-bearded man with a for- 
bidding manner, who evidently grudged me the half-hour I asked of him 
to talk about Brown. He said he had letters of Brown ; but they were 
business letters, and not to be .shown. He said he no longer kept sheep, 
because " it does not pay to keep them here, so near to the city ; " that 
his crops were wheat, fruit, vegetables, etc. I told him that I knew much 
of Brown's Virginia campaign, but little of his life as a sheep-farmer, and 
obtained the information given above. 



58 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1843. 

you mean to connect me with that Virginia affair ? " said 
Colonel Perkins. " I consider him and the men that helped 
him in that the biggest set of fools in the world." Evi- 
dently he had treated Brown more generously than he now 
spoke of him, and no doubt sympathized with him in his ef- 
fort to help the wool-growers. Mi\ T. B. Musgrave, of Xew 
York, who was then well acquainted with the wool-trade, has 
told me that the warehousing of wool at Springfield and else- 
where was a new feature introduced by Brown, in order to 
enhance prices in the interest of the farmers. 

Brown went from Franklin to Hudson in 1839, having 
also lived at Hudson in 1836-37, and in 1840 for a time. 
In 1841 he kept the sheep of Captain Oviatt, a farmer and 
merchant of Richfield. After his reverses in 1837 he had 
taken up the romantic life of a shepherd, — that, as he says, 
" being a calling for which in early life he had a kind of 
enthusiastic longing." At the age of thirty-nine, when he 
entered fully upon this " calling," he also had, as he says, 
" the idea that as a business it bid fair to afford him the 
means of carrying out his greatest or principal object." 
This object was the liberation of the slaves; and the plan 
which he had formed for this was in substance the same in 
1839 that it was twenty years later, when he put it in exe- 
cution. " If he kept sheep," said Emerson, " it was with 
a royal mind ; and if he traded in wool, he was a merchant- 
prince, not in the amount of wealth, but in the protection 
of the interests confided to him." A few of his letters at 
this period may be cited to show how he dealt with these 
interests, whether of animals or of men. 

Letters of John Broivn to his Children. 

Richfield, Ohio, July 24, 1843. 

Dear son John, — I well know how to appreciate the feelings 
of a yonng person among strangers, and at a distance from home ; and 
no want of good feeling towards you, or interest in you, has been 
the reason why I have not written yon before. I have been careful 
and troubled with so much serving, that I have in a great measure 
neglected the one thing needful, and pretty much stopped all corres- 
pondence with heaven. My worldly business has borne heavily, and 
still does ; but we progress some, have our sheep sheared, and have 



1844.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 59 

done something at our haying. Have our tauuing business going on 
in about the same proportion, — that is, we are pretty fairly behind 
in business, and feel that I nmst nearly or quite give up one or other 
of the branches, for vi^ant of reguLar troops on whom to depend. We 
should like to know how you expect to dispose of your time hereafter, 
and how you get along, what your studies are, and what difficulties 
you meet. I would send you some money, but I have not yet re- 
ceived a dollar from any source since you left. I should not be so dry 
of funds could I but overtake my work ; but all is well, — all is well. 
Will you couie home or not this fall ? I suppose there are some per- 
sons in Richfield who would be middling fond of seeing you back once 
more, wherever you may be. I hope you may behave yourself wisely 
in all things. 

From your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Richfield, Jan. 11, 1844. 

Dear Son John, — Your letter, dated December 21, was re- 
ceived some days ago, bat I have purposely delayed till now, in 
order to comply with your request that 1 should write about every- 
thing. We are all in health ; amongst the number is a new sister,^ 
about three weeks old. I know of no one of our friends that is not in 
comfortable health. I have just met with father ; he was with us a 
few days since, and all were then well in Hudson. Our flock is well, 
and we seem to be overtaking our business in the tannery. Divine 
Providence seems to smile on our works at this time ; I hope we 
shall not prove unthankful f(n- any favor, nor forget the giver. (I 
have gone to sleep a great many times while writing the above.) 
The boys and Ruth are trying to improve some this winter, and are 
effecting a little I think. I have lately entered into a copartnership 
with Simon Perkins, Jr., of Akron, with a view to carry on the 
sheep business extensively. He is to furnish all the feed and shelter 
for wintering, as a set-off against our taking all the care of the flock. 
All other expenses we are to share equally, and to divide the profits 
equally. This arrangement will reduce our cash rents at least $250 
yearly, and save our hiring help in haying. We expect to keep the 
Captain Oviatt form for jiasturing, but my family will go into a very 
good house belonging to ^Ir. Perkins, — say from a half a mile to a 
mile out of Akron. I think this is the most comfortable and the most 
favorable arrangement of my worldly concerns that I ever had, and 
calculated to aff'ord us more leisure for im})rovement, by day and by 
night, than any other- I do hope that God has enabled us to make 

^ Anne Brown, now Mrs. Adams. 



60 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1844. 

it in mercy to us, and not that he should send leanness into our souls. 
Our time will all be at our own command, except the care of the 
Hock. We have nothing to do M-ith providing for them in the winter 
excepting harvesting rutabagas and potatoes. 

This, 1 think, will be considered no mean alliance for our family, 
and I most earnestly hope they will have wisdom given to make the 
uiost of it. It is certainly indorsing the poor bankrupt and his family, 
three of whom were but recently in Akron jail, in a manner (juite un- 
expected, and proves that notwithstanding we have been a company 
of " Belted Knights," our industrious and steady endeavors to main- 
tain our integrity and our character have not been wholly overlooked. 
Mr. Perkins is perfectly advised of our poverty, and the times that 
have passed over us. Perhcips you may think best to have some 
connection with this business. I do not know of any person in 
KiCHFiELD that you would be likely to be fond of hearing from in 
particular, excepting one at Cleveland ; and if hearing from any 
person prove to be a very up-stream business, 1 would advise not 
to worry at present. Will you let me know how it stands between 
you and all parties concerned i ^ 

Your father, 

John Brown. 

To his wife he wrote thus at this period : — 

Springfield, Mass., March 7, 1844. 
]\Iy dear Mary, — It is once more Sabbath evening, and nothing 
so much accords with my feelings as to spend a portion of it in con- 
versing with the partner of my choice, and the sharer of my poverty, 
trials, discredit, and sore afflictions, as well as of what comfort and 
seeming prosperity has fallen to my lot for quite a number of years. 
I would you sliould realize that, notwithstanding I am absent in 
body, I am very much of the time present in spirit. I do not forget 
the firm attachment of her who has remained my fast and faithful 
affectionate friend, when others said of me, " Now that he lieth, he 
shall rise up no more." ... I now feel encouraged to believe that 
my absence will not be very long. After being so much away, it 
seems as if I knew pretty well how to appreciate the quiet of home. 
There is a peculiar music in the word which a half-year's absence in 
a distant country would enable you to understand. Millions there 
are who have no such thing to lay claim to. I feel considerable regret 
by tui-ns tliat I have lived so many years, and have in reality done so 

• 1 The alhision at the close of this letter is to some affairs of the heart in 
which the young man tiien had an interest ; for love was no more a stranger 
to these Ohio shepherds than to those of Sicily. 



1844.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 61 

little t() increase the amount of hiiinan happiness. I often regret that 
my manner is no more kind and afliectionate to those I really love 
and esteem; but I trust my friends will overlook my harsh, rough 
ways, when I cease to be in their way as an occasion of pain and uu- 
happiness. In imagination I often see you in your room with Little 
Cliick and that strange Anna. You must say to her that father 
means to come before long and kiss somebody. I will close by 
saying that it is my growing resolution to endeavor to promote my 
own happiness by doing what I can to render those about me more 
so. If the large boys do wrong, call them alone into your room, and 
expostulate with them kindly, and see if you cannot reach them by a 
kind but pow^erful appeal to their honor. I do not claim that such 
a theory accords very well with my practice; I frankly confess it does 
not ; but I want your face to shine, even if my own should be dark 
and cloudy. You can let the family read this letter, and perhaps you 
may not feel it a great burden to answer it, and let me hear all about 
how you get along. 

Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Cleveland, June 22, 1844. 
Dear son John, — I received your letter some days ago, but was 
so busy in preparing for my journey to Lowell (on which I now am) 
that 1 could find no time to write before. We had been waiting for 
news from you for some time, not knowing where you were, and were 
all glad of your letter. I will give a little account of things since 
you left. We moved to Akron about the 10th of April ; get along 
very pleasantly with our neighbors Perkins ; find them very affable 
and kind. Have had a good deal of loss amongst our sheep from 
grub in the head. Have raised 5G0 lambs, and have 2,700 pounds 
of wool ; have been offered 56 cents per pound for one ton of it. 
Jason spends most of his time in Richfield. Have not yet done 
finishing leather, but shall probably get through in a few weeks 
after my return. The general aspect of our woridly affairs is favor- 
able. Hope we do not entirely forget God. I am extremely ignorant 
at present of miscellaneous subjects. Have not been at Richfield for 
some time, and have but a moment to write, on board a boat. I 
enclose three dollars, and would more, but may be short of expense 
money. May write you at Lowell or Boston ; ^ may return by you. 
Your afl'ectionate father, 

John Brown. 

1 Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, of Bo.ston, writes me (Feb. 25, 1885), "Brown 
was the agent of our Firm to buy wool in Oliio. as early as 1843." 



62 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1846. 

Akkon, Jan. 27, 1846. 

Dear son John, — I arrived at home December 2d ; had a fa- 
tiguing but I should tliiuk a prosperous journey, and brought with 
me a few choice sheep. Our wool sold by the sort, at from 24 cents 
to $L20 per pound, just as we wash it on the sheep ; average, about 
the same as last year, perhaps a little better. Our flock have done 
remarkably this winter, and are in good condition and health. We 
have lost but three by disease since sometime in the fall. Our sales 
of sheep (mostly bucks) since August amount to about $ (540. Since 
my return, I have been troubled considerably with my eyes. They are 
better now. Your letter to Ruth is received, and slie is preparing to 
go with you when you come out. I have a plan to lay before you for 
your o})enitions after the first of June next, and hope you will not com- 
mit yourself for a longer time until you hear it. I think we have quite 
as much wtaidly prosperity as will bo likely to be a real blessing to 
us. Fred is in Richfield for the present, with about 250 sheep and a 
dog under his command. He seems disposed to reading and some 
thought. Would like to have you write him there, or here perhaps 
would be better. Write often. 

Affectionately your father, John Brown. 

PiiCHMOND, Jefferson County, Ohio, March 24, 1846. 

Dear Son, — I am out among the wool-growers, with a view to 
the next summer's operations. Left home about a week ag<j; all were 
then in middling health except some very hard colds. 1 expect to be 
out some three or four weeks yet, and on that account do not know as 
I shall be able to hear from you and Ruth until I get home. Hope to 
hear from you then. Mr. Perkins came home a day or two after you 
left, full in the faith of our plan, having completed our aiTangemeuts. 
Our plan seems to meet with general favor. Jason and I have talked 
of a visit to Canada on our return next fall. We would like to know 
more about tliat country. We should be glad to hear something from 
George Dela-mater, and to know where he is, and what he really means 
to be. You may, if you think best, say so to him, and tell him we 
have not forgotten him. Our unexampled success in minor affairs 
might be a lesson to us of what unity and perseverance might do in 
things of some importance. If you learn of any considerable wool- 
dealers or wool-growers, you can use the circular, and more may be 
sent if best ; of that you can judge after a little inquiry. I may 
write you again before I go home. Say to Buth, to he all that to-day 
which she intends to he to-morroiv. 

Your father, 

John Brown. 



1846.1 



JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 



63 



The " circular " mentioned in the last letter is the follow- 
ing, first issued in 1846, and written by Brown : — 

The undersigned, commission wool-merchauts, wool-graders, 
and exporters, have completed arrangements for receiving wool uf 
growers and holders, and for grading and selling the same for cash at 
its real value, when quality and condition are considered. Terms for 
storing, grading, and selling will be two cents per pound, and about one 
mill per pound additional for postage and insurance against loss by fire. 
These will cover all charges. Those consigning wool to us should 
pay particular attention to the marking of their sacks ; near one end 

of each sack should be marked in plain characters, '' From " 

(here give the owner's name in full, ttjgether with the No. and weight 
of each bale). On the side of each sack direct to Perkins & Brown, 
Springfield, Mass. 

REFERENCES. 

Persons wishing for information in regard to our responsibility, 
punctuality, etc., are referred to the following gentlemen : — 



Hon. Jeremiah H. Hallock, Steu- 

benville, Jefferson County, Ohio. 
Adam Heldexkkand, Esq., Massil- 

lon, Stark County, Ohio. 
James \V. Wallace, Esq., Brandy- 
wine Mills, Summit County, Ohio. 
Matthew McKeever, Esq., West 

Middletown,Wasliington Co., Penn. 
John Sjiart, Esq., Darlington, 

Beaver County, Penn. 
Fred'k Brandt, Esq., Gennano, 

Harrison Countj^, Ohio. 
Bishop Alexander Campbell, 

Bethany College, Va. 
J. D. & W. H. Ladd, Richmond, 

Jefferson County, Ohio. 
H. T. Kirtland, Esq., Poland, 

Trumbull County, Ohio. 
John R. Jones, Esq., Vernon. N. Y. 
Austin B. Webster, Esq., Vernon, 

Oneida County, N. Y. 

Springfield, Mass., 1846. 



William Patterson, Esq., Patter- 
son's Mills, Washington County, 
Penn. 

James Patterson, Esq., Patterson's 
Mills, Washington County, Penn. 

Samuel Patterson, Esq., Patter- 
son's Mills, Washington County, 
Penn. 

Jesse Eddington, Esq., Steuben- 
ville, Jefferson County, Ohio. 

Patterson & Ewing, Burgettstown, 
Washington Countj', Penn. 

Wm. Brovvnlee, Esq., Washington, 
Washington County, Penn. 

Fred'k Kinsbian, Esq., Warren, 
Trumbull County, Ohio. 

Heman Oviatt, Esq., Eichtield, 
Summit County, Ohio. 

Van R. Humphrey, Esq., Hudson, 
Summit County, Ohio. 

Perkins & Brown, 



In 1846, while in the midst of these occupations as a 
wool-grower and wool-dealer, John Brown came back to 
New England for a few years, and took up his abode at 
Springfield, in Massachusetts, not very far from the first 



64 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1847. 

Connecticut home of his ancestors in Windsor. He went 
there to reside as one of this firm of Perkins & Brown, 
agents of the sheep-farmers and wool-merchants in North- 
ern Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia, whose 
interests then reqviired an agency to stand between them 
and the wool-manufacturers of ^ew England, to whom they 
sold their fleeces. The Ohio wool-growers fancied that 
they were fleeced as well as their flocks in the transactions 
they had with these manufacturers, who would buy wool 
before it was graded, pay for it at the price of a low grade, 
and then sort it so as to bring themselves a large profit. In 
the contest which Brown carried on with them, these New 
England manufacturers finally won, but, as he thought, by 
bribing one of his subordinates. Concerning his business 
life at Springfield, I have the following particulars and 
anecdotes from Mr. E. C. Leonard, now of New Bedford, 
who had an ofiice in the same block with Brown, at Spring- 
field, near the railroad station and the Massasoit House. 
Mr. Leonard calls him, familiarly, " Uncle John," but not 
from relationship. 

" I first knew Johu Brown in the summer of 1847, when he rented 
the upper part of John L. King's old warehouse by the railroad, and 
I occupied the lower floor and celhir. He was busy with his men 
sorting wool upstairs, and seldom stopped to say more than a short 
pleasant word, in passing up or down through my store. 

'' Chester W. Chapin was building a block next south of the old 
railroad office, and Uncle John had engaged one store and the lofts, 
into which he moved early in 1848. In 1850 he was winding up 
his wool business, and I engaged the room he occupied, and moved in- 
to the store while he still held the lofts. I was then more intimately 
in contact with him, and learned more of his nature and opinions, 
and then learned to respect him highly. His wool business was un- 
successful. I always understood that some time in 1845-46, the 
wool-growers of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and perhaps of Illinois, had 
a convention in some western city, among them Uncle John, who 
then owned a flock of Saxony sheep with Mr. Perkins of Akron, 
Ohio, said to be the finest and most perfect flock in the United States, 
and worth about $20,000. At this convention Uncle John suggested 
the plan of having an agent in Massachusetts to whom the growers 
should send their wo(d, have it graded, and sold at a certain sum per 
pound. The idea took, and to the surprise of Uncle John, they pitched 



1849.] JOHN BEOWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 65 

upon him as their agent. I understood that he was finally persuaded 
to take the agency with considerahle difficulty, but at last consented, 
and went into it with his usual energy. The idea of the Association 
was, that all their wool should go there, be graded, sold, and each 
to share proportionally in the price, according to quality, fineness, 
cleanliness, etc. This was all very well the first year, when wool 
advanced somewhat upon the opening market, and the gi'owers 
netted better prices than they had been in the habit of getting ; 
but it did not last. Uncle John tried to can-y out the idea impar- 
tially, with all the rigor of theory and of his habits of thought. But 
those growers who had taken pains with the fineness, cleanliness, 
etc., of their wool found they had to discount from the price it 
brought on account of the carelessness of other growers, when the 
general average was made up at the end of the season. Those, too, 
who had brought their wool to market early, and had it graded and 
sold early at good prices, found there was a discount from the falling 
of the market later in the season. Besides, Uncle John was no 
trader: he waited until his wools were graded, and then fixed a 
price ; if this suited the manufacturers they took the fleeces; if not, 
they bought elsewhere, and Uncle John had to submit finally to a 
much less price than he could have got. Yet he was a scrupulously 
honest and upright man, — hard and inflexible, but everybody had 
just what belonged to him. Brown was in a position to make a for- 
tune, and a regular-bred merchant would have done so, — benefiting 
the wool-growers and the manufacturers mutually. But, as I said, 
it was a failure." 

How extensive this business became before it closed may- 
be seen by some calculations before me, in Brown's hand- 
writing, but without any date of the year, — presumably, 
however, before he w^ent to Europe, in 1849. These fig- 
ures evidently represent the agent's transactions in one 
year's business : — 

Freight $1,000.52 

Insurance 140.76 

Commissions 2,598.49 

Postage 1.10 

Cash 52,701. .33 

Interest to 7th Aug 1,332.21 

Sundries 110.07 

Total paid, $57,884.48 

Total received, 49,902.67 

5 ' $7,981.81 



66 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1847. 

This seems to indicate that Brown had advanced money 
on the wool stored in Springtiekl, and that the excess of his 
advances over the cash received and the expenses of the 
business had been nearly $8,000 at this time. The whole 
stock of wool covered by this account was nearly one hun- 
dred and thirty thousand pounds, and the average price 
received apparently less than forty cents a pound, — the 
different prices ranging from twenty-five to eighty-five 
cents a pound. 

Frederick Douglass (once a Maryland fugitive, and since 
the Marshal of the United States at Washington, twenty 
years after Brown's death, but who knew him in 1847-48 as 
a radical abolitionist, very friendly to all men of color, and 
especially to fugitive slaves) describes Brown's way of life 
at Springfield as he then saw it. Douglass had called at his 
wool warehouse first, and finding that a substantial brick 
building on a prominent street, he inferred that the occu- 
pant must be a man of wealth. But the dwelling-house of 
the wool-merchant amazed him : — 

" It was a small wooden Innlihng on a hack streot, in a neighbor- 
hood chiefly occnpied by laboring men and mechanics; respectable 
enongh, to be sure, but not quite the place, I thought, where one 
would look for the residence of a flourishing and successful merchant. 
Plain as was the outside of the house, the inside was plainer. Its 
furniture would have satisfied a Spartan. It would take longer to 
tell what was not in this house than what was in it. There was an 
air of plainness about it which almost suggested destitution. My first 
meal passed under the misnomer of tea, though there was nothing 
suggestive of that meal as it is generally understood. It consisted of 
beef soup, cabbage, and potatoes, a meal such as a man might relish 
after following the plough all day. There were no servants, — the 
mother, daughters, and sons did the serving, and did it well. They 
were evidently used to it, and had no thought of any impropriety or 
degradation in being their own servants. It is said that a house in 
some measure reflects the character of its occupants ; this one^ cer- 
tainly did. In it there were no disguises, no illusions, no make- 
believes; everything implied stern truth, solid purpose, and rigid 
economy. . . . He fulfilled St. Paul's idea of the head of the family. 
His wif(> believed in him, and his children observed him with rever- 
ence. Whenever he spoke liis words commanded earnest attention. 
His arguments, which I ventured at some points to oppose, seemed 



1850.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 67 

to convince all ; his appeals touched all, and his will impressed all. 
Certainly, I never felt myself in the presence of a stronger religious 
influence than whUe in this man's house." 

Douglass soon learned that his host was living in this 
Spartan way in order to save as much money as possible for 
his great enterprise of freeing the slaves ; and this agrees 
with what we know from other sources. It was from James 
Forman probably that Mr. Eedpath obtained the typical 
anecdote that Brown would not sell leather by the pound 
from his tannery until the last drop of moisture had been 
dried out of it, " lest he should sell his customers water 
instead of leather." The general testimony of his business 
associates is that of Heraan Oviatt who knew him at Eich- 
field, and who said in 1859 : " Through life he has been 
distinguished for his integrity, and esteemed a very con- 
scientious man by those who have known him." 

It was to advance the price of wool that Brown visited 
Europe, hoping to open there a market for American wool, 
some lots of which he had previously forwarded to his agents, 
the Pickersgills, in London. As will be seen later, the price 
actually got at auction in England for the second grade of 
wool was less than thirty cents a pound, or far below the 
American average. Mr. Leonard happened to be an eye- 
witness to one of the instances in which Brown was griev- 
ously disappointed in his English speculation, and has thus 
described what took place. We must suppose the time to 
be after Brown's return from Europe. Mr. Musgrave, the 
Yorkshire manufacturer, established in Northampton, Mass., 
was the father of T. B. Musgrave of New York, already 
cited. 

" A little incident occurred in 1850. Perkins & Brown's clip had 
come forward, and it was beautiful ; the little compact Saxony fleeces 
were as nice as possible. Mr. Musgrave of the Northampton Woollen 
Mill, who was making shawls and broadcloths, wanted it, and offered 
Uncle John sixty cents a pound for it. ' No, I am going to send it 
to London.' Musgrave, who was a Yorkshire man, advised Brown 
not to do it, for American wool would not sell in London, — not being 
thought good. He tried hard to buy it, but without avail. Uncle 
John graded it himself, bought new sacking, and had it packed 
under his own eye. The bags were firm, round, hard, and true 



68 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1839. 

almost as if they had been turned out in a lathe, and away it went. 
Some little time after, lung enough for the purpose, news came that 
it was sold in London, but the price was not stated. Musgrave came 
into my counting-room one forenoon all aglow, and said he wanted 
me to go with him, — he was going to have some fun. Then he went 
to the stairs and called Uncle John, and told him he wanted him to 
go over to the Hartford depot and see a lot of wool he had bought. 
So Uncle John put on his coat, and we started. When we arrived at 
the depot, and just as we were going into the freight-house, Musgrave 
says : ' Mr. Brune, I want you to tell me what you think of this lot 
of wull that stands me in just fifty-two cents a pund.' One glance 
at the bags was enough. Uncle John wheeled, and I can see him 
now as he ' put back' to the lofts, his brown coat-tails floating be- 
hind him, and the nervous strides fairly devouring the way. It was 
his OMTi clip, for which Musgrave, some three months before, had 
offered him sixty cents a pound as it lay in the loft. It had been 
graded, new-bagged, shipped by steamer to Lcjndon, sold, and re- 
shipped, and was in Springfield at eight cents in the pound less than 
Musgrave offered. 

" The last time I saw him ^A•as in 1851. He had some native wine 
that he had made, and he asked me to taste it, — I think frcnn currants, 
native grapes, and the raspberry. The latter was very excellent, and 
wlien I told him of the great quantities of Franconia raspberries 
growing by the roadsides in the White Mountain region, he took 
down directions, and said he should try to go there the next season 
and make a quantity of wine." 

So it seems he was a vintager as well as a sliepherd; 
indeed, he sought perfection in all his undertakings, and 
was constantly improving the stock of cattle, the quality of 
orchards, grape-vines, etc., as his sons do still. In March, 
ISilO, he drove a herd of cattle from Ohio to Connecticut, 
and in July brought back with him a few fine sheep, from 
which he bred his first flock in Eichfield. He had made a 
previous journey to Connecticut the same year, in connec- 
tion with his financial embarrassment, and in the course of 
it wrote the following letter to his wife : — 

New Hartford, Conx., Jan. 23, 1839. 

... I have felt distressed to get my business dtme and return, 
ever since I left ln^ne, but know of no way consistent with duty but 
to make thorough work of it while there is any hope. Things now 
look more favorable than they have, but I may still be disappointed. 



1840.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 69 

We must all try to trust in Him who is very gracious and full of 
compassion and of almighty power ; for those that do will not be made 
ashamed. Ezra the prophet prayed and afflicted himself before God, 
when himself and the Captivity were in a straight, and I have no 
doubt you will join with me under similar circumstances. Don't get 
discouraged, any of you, but hope iu God, and try all to serve him 
with a perfect heart. 

In 1840 he had returned to Hudson, where his father still 
lived, and there engaged largely in sheep-raising.^ His part- 
ner at first was Captain Oviatt, of Richfield, a neighboring 
town ; and in 1842 Brown had removed to Eichfield, where 
he lived for two years, and where his daughter Anne was 
born. Here, too, he lost four children in less than three 
weeks, — Sarah, aged nine ; Charles, almost six ; Peter, not 
quite three ; and Austin, a year old. Three of these were 
carried out of his house at one funeral, and were buried in 
the same grave, in September, 1843. In Springfield also, as 
we have seen, one of his children died under pathetic cir- 
cumstances. Yet he looked back on his life in that city 
with pleasure. 

1 John Brown bred racing-horses in Franklin in 1836-37, from a horse 
called "Count Piper," and from another called "John McDonald." There 
was a race-course at Warren, Ohio, fret^uented by Kentuckians and others, 
the only racing-ground then iu the Western Reserve. A certain Dr. Har- 
mon owned or kept "Count Piper" and "John McDonald," from which 
Brown bred several colts ; and young John, who gave me these facts, says 
that he " broke " a young McDonald at three or four years old, — perhaps 
in 1837-38. His father had no scrui^le about breeding race-horses at that 
time, but afterwards gave it up on principle. " He had no wish to breed 
merely draft-horses, but was alwaj's thinking of running with horses and 
of military operations." He wanted his sons to become familiar with swift 
horses, and to understand all about their management, and was himself a 
good rider, — not particularly graceful, his sons say, "but it was very 
hard to throw him." He "broke" racing-horses himself. At iirst, he 
argued that if he did not breed them, somebody else would ; but his son 
John "convinced him that was the gamblers and the slaveholders argu- 
ment, a7id he abandoned the business, and went into sheep-farming and tan- 
ning." This I heard from John and Owen Brown in 1882, when they were 
relating to me their adventures on horseback in Kansas, in which they 
owed their escape from their enemies to the speed of their horses and the 
training of the latter to leap fences, etc. Among the men who were asso- 
ciated with Jolm Brown in business were Gilbert Hubbard (son of a ship 
chandler of Boston, and afterwards a chandler himself at Chicago), who was 



70 Lll^E AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1849. 

While engaged in his Springfield agency, and wishing to 
make a market for his wool, which he thought he could sell 
in Europe to advantage, he went abroad in 1849, and trav- 
ersed a part of England and the Continent, on business, but 
also with an eye to his future campaigns against slavery. 
He visited wool-markets and battle-fields, and took notice 
of the tricks of trade and the manoeuvres of armies with 
equal interest. He was then noted among wool-dealers for 
the delicacy of his touch in sorting the different qualities 
and his skill in testing them when submitted to him. Give 
him three samples of wool, — one grown in Ohio, another in 
Vermont, and a third in Saxony, — and he would distinguish 
them from each other in the dark, by his sense of touch. 
Some Englishmen, during his sojourn abroad, put this power 
to the test in an amusing manner. One evening, in com- 
pany with several English wool-dealers, each of whom had 
brought samples in his pocket, Brown was giving his opinion 
as to the best use to which certain grades and qualities 
should be put. One of the party very gravely drew a sam- 
ple from his pocket, handed it to the Yankee farmer, and 
asked him what he would do with such wool as that. 
Brown took it,' and had only to roll it between his fingers 
to know that it had not the minute hooks by whicli the 
fibres of wool are attached to each other. " Gentlemen," 
said he, " if you have any machinery in England that will 
work up dog's hair, I advise you to j^ut this into it." The 
jocose Briton had sheared a poodle and brought the fleece 
with him ; but the laugh went against him when Brown 
handed back his precious sample. His skill in trade was 
not so great; and, as we saw, after trying the markets 
of Europe, he finally sold his Liverpool consignments of 
wool at a lower price than they would have brought in 
Springfield. 

connected with Brown at Hudson in sheep-raisin.?, and afterwards with him 
at Springfield in the wool husiness, and J. C Fairchild, father of General 
Lucius Fairchild, of Wisconsin, who was a ])nrtner with Brown in tanning 
at Hudson, and afterwards lived at Cleveland. A young man named For- 
man, who became connected afterwards hy marriage with the Fairchilds, 
was brought up by Brown at Randolph, and was living in 1861 at Youngs- 
ville, Peiin. 



1849.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 71 

'V few letters of his from Europe are in existence, and 
will soon be given. The only other record of his European 
experiences is, perhaps, that noted down by me from con- 
versations in 1857-59, in which he described what he chiefly 
noticed abroad, — the agricultural and military equipment of 
the countries visited, and the social condition of the people. 
He thought a standing army the greatest curse to a country, 
because it drained away the best of the young men, and left 
farming and the industrial arts to be managed by inferior 
persons. The German farming, he said, was bad husbandry, 
because the farmers there did not live on their land, but in 
villages, and so wasted the natural manures which ought to 
go back without diminution to the soil. He thought Eng- 
land the best cultivated country he had ever seen ; but as 
we were driving away one morning in 1859 from the coun- 
try seat of Mr. John M. Forbes at Milton, near Boston, he 
told me that he had seen few houses of rich men in England 
so full of beauty and comfort as this, in which he had 
passed the night. He had followed the military career of 
Napoleon with great interest, and visited some of his battle- 
fields. We talked of such things while driving from Con- 
cord to ]\[edford one Sunday in April, 1857. ' He then told 
me that he had kept the contest against slavery in mind 
while travelling on the Continent, and had made a special 
study of the European armies and battle-fields. He had 
examined Napoleon's positions, and assured me that the 
common military theory of strong places was unsound ; that 
a ravine was in truth more defensible than a hill-top. So 
it is for an army of heroes, as Leonidas demonstrated at 
Thermopylae ; but for ordinary warfare, we may believe 
that Napoleon was right. Brown often witnessed the evo- 
lutions of the Austrian troops, and declared that they could 
always be defeated (as they have since been in Italy and 
elsewhere) by soldiers who should manoeuvre more rapidl}^ 
The Erench soldiers he thought well drilled, but lacking 
individual prowess ; for that he gave the palm to our own 
countrymen. 

John Brown sailed for England in August, 1849, and 
returned to Springfield in October. He wrote to his son 
as follows ; — 



72 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BKOWX. |1849. 

LoNDOx, Aug. 29, 1849. 
Dear son John, — I reached Liverjx)ol on Sabbath day, the 
26th iust., and this phice the 27th at eveuiug, — a debtor to Grace for 
health aud for a very pleasant and quick passage. Have called on 
the Messrs. Pickersgill, and find they have neither sold any wool nor 
offered any. They think that no time has been lost, and that a good 
sale can yet be expected. It is now the calculation to offer some 
of it at the monthly sale, September next, commencing a little before 
the middle of the month. I have had no time to examine any wools 
as yet, and can therefore express no opinion of my own in the matter. 
England is a fine country, so far as I have seen; but nothing' so very 
wonderful has yet appeared to me. Their fanning and stone-masonry 
are very good ; cattle, generally more than middling good.^ Horses, 
as seen at Liverpool and London, and through the fine country 
betwixt these places, will bear no comparison with those of our 
Northern States, as they average. I am here told that I must go to 
the Park to see the fine horses of England, and I suppose I must ; 
for the streets of London and Liverpool do not exhibit half the dis- 
play of fine horses as do those of our cities. But what I judge 
from more than anything is the numerous breeding mares and colts 
among the growers. Their h<'gs are generally good, and mutton- 
sheep are almost everyAvhere as fiit as pork. Tell my friend Middle- 
ton and wife that England afl'ords me plenty of roast beef and 
mutton of the first' water, and done up in a style not to be exceeded. 
As I intend to write you very oft en- 1 shall not be lengthy; shall 
probably add more to this sheet before I seal it. Since writing the 
above, I find that it will be my best way to set out at once for the 
Continent, and I expect to leave for Paris this evening. So farewell 
for this time, — now about four o'clock p. M. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

London, Sept. 21, 1849. 

De.\r son John, — T have nothing new to write excepting that I 

am still well, and that on Monday a lot of No. 2 wool was sold 

at the auction sale, at from twenty-six to twenty-nine cents per pound. 

This is a bad sale, and I have withdrawn all other wools from the 

1 "Writing Sept. 30, 1850, to an inquiring correspondent, Jolui Brown 
said : " None of my cattle are pure Devons, but a mixture of that and 
a particular favorite .<;topk from Connectieut, — a cross of which I much 
prefer to any pure Ejiglish cattle, after many years experience, of different 
breeds. I was several montlis in England last season, and saw no one 
stock on any farm that would average better than my own.'l 



1849.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 73 

market, or public sales. Since the other wools have been withdrawn, 
I have discovered a much greater interest among the buyers, and I 
am in hopes to succeed better with the other wools ; but cannot say 
yet how it will prove on the whole. I have a great deal of stupid, 
obstinate prejudice to contend with, as well as contlictiug interests, 
both in this country and from the United States. I can only say that 
I have exerted myself to the utmost, and that if I cannot effect a 
better sale of the other wools privately I shall start them back. I 
believe that not a pound of No. 2 wool was bought for the United 
States ; and I learn that the general feeling is now that it was 
quite undersold. About one hundred and fifty bales were sold. I 
regret that so many bales were put up ; but it cannot be helped now, 
f(jr after wool has been subjected to a London examination k>r public 
sale, it is very much injared for selling again. The agent of Thiriou, 
IMailard, &. Co., has been looking at them to-day, and seemed highly 
pleased ; said he had never seen superior m'ooIs, and that he would 
see me again. We have not yet talked about price. 

I now think I shall begin to think of home quite in earnest at 
least in another fortnight, possibly sooner. I do not think the sale 
made a full test of the operation. Farewell. 

Your affectionate fathei", 

John Brown. 

Westpokt, N. Y., Nov. 9, 1849. 
Dear son John, — I reached home last week, and found all well, 
and the weather fine, which has been the case since you left Essex 
County. I expect to return to Springfield some day next week, but 
wish you would forward me (without delay) by letter directed to me 
at this place (Westport, Essex Co.), care of F. H. Cutting, a draft 
on New York for $250, payable to my order. Please let my wife 
know. 

Your affectionate father, John Brown. 

John Brown landed in England, Sunday, Aug. 26, 1849, 
and was in Paris on the 29th and 30th of August. His 
journey through Germany must have been swift, for he was 
again in London, September 21 ; but he may have visited 
the Continent again in October, for he did not land in New 
York until the last week in October, and proceeded from 
there to Westport on his way to North Elba (where his 
family were then settled), as the short letter above printed 
shows. His wife, hoAvever, was then at a water-cure 
establishment in Northampton, while John was managing 



74 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

the business in Springfield. The story of his settlement in 
the wilderness of northern New York will be more fully 
given hereafter. So far as his wool business was concerned, 
this forest home afforded him a quiet retreat from the 
annoyances which the failure of his mercantile enterprise 
brought upon him. All through 1850 it was evident that 
the result would be unfortunate, and it was feared his losses 
might be large. Brown was anxious, not without reason, 
lest his partner in Ohio, Simon ]^erkins, might blame him 
for his peculiar and obstinate course in trying to force the 
market, without success. The following letters show how 
this affair turned : — 

John Brotvn to his Fatnibj. 

BuiiGETTSTOWN, Penn., April 12, 1850. 

Dear son John and Wife, — When at New York, ou my way 
here, I called at Messrs. Fowler & Wells's office, but you were 
abseut. Mr. Perkins has made me a visit here, and left for home 
yesterday. All well at Essex when I left; all well at Akron when 
he left, one week since. Our meeting together was one of the most 
cordial and pleasant I ever experienced. He met a full history of 
our difficulties and probable losses without a frown on his counte- 
nance, or one syllable of reflection ; but, on the contrary, with words 
of comfort and encouragement. He is wholly averse to any separa- 
tion of our business or interest, and gave me the fullest assurance of 
his undiminished confidence and personal regard. He expresses 
strong desire to have our flock of sheep remain undivided, to become 
the joint possession of our families when we have gone oft' the stage. 
Such a meeting I had not dared to expect, and I most heartily wish 
each of my family could have shared in the comfort of it. Mr. Per- 
kins has in the whole business, from first to last, set an example 
worthy of a philosopher, or of a Christian. I am meeting with a 
{jood deal of trouble from those to whom we have over-advanced, but 
feel nerved to face any difficulty vi^hile God continues me such a 
partner. Expect to be in New York within three or four weeks. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, April 25, 1850. 

Dear son John and Wife, — T reached here well yesterday, 
and found all well. Since I came I liave seen your letter to Jason, 
by which I am taken somewhat by surprise; but am exceedingly 



1850.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 75 

gratified to learn that you have concluded to quit that city. I have 
only to say at this, moment, do suspend all further plans and move- 
ments uutn you can hear the result of a general consultation over 
matters with Mr. Perkins, youv grandfather, and Jason. I mil just 
say, in few words, that such is the eflfect here of the California fever, 
that a man is becoming more precious than gold ; and I very much 
want my family to take the legitimate aud proper advantage of it. 
Edward has got married and gone to California. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Whitehall, N. Y., Nov. 4, 1850. 
Dear son John, — I was disappointed in not seeing you and 
Wealthy ^ while in Ohio ; and not till within a few days did I get to 
know where to write you, as I have been on the move most of the 
season. I should have written you while at Ravenna, but expected 
every day to see you. We have trouble : Pickersgills, McDonald, 
Jones, Warren, Burlington, and Patterson & Ewiug, — these differ- 
ent claims amount to some forty thousand d(jllars, and if lost will 
leave me nice and flat. This is in confidence. Mr. Perkins bears the 
trouble a great deal better than I had feared. I have been trying to 
collect, aud am still trying. Have not yet effected a sale of our wool. 
I expect to take some of the best of my cattle to Akron. Our crops 
in Essex were very good this season, aud expenses small. The fam- 
ily were well when last heard from. Am now on my way home. 
Ruth was married in September, and I tliink has done well. I want 
you to write me at Springfield all how you get along, and what you 
are doing and intend to do, and what your prospects are. I have in 
no way altered my plan of future operations since conversing with 
you, and I found Mr. Perkins's views fully correspond with my own. 
I have my head and hands quite full ; so no more now. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., Dec. 4, 1850. 

Dear sons John, Jason, Frederick, and daughters, — I 
this moment received the letter of John and Jason of the 29th No- 
vember, and feel grateful not only to learn that you are all alive and 
well, but also for almost everything your letters communicate. I am 
much pleased with the reflection that you are all three once more to- 
gether, and all engaged in the same calling that the old patriarchs 
followed. I will say but one word more on that score, aud that is 

^ The wife of John. 



76 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

taken from their history : '' See that ye fall not out by the way," and 
all will be exactly right in the end. I should think matters were 
brightening a little in this direction, in regard to our claims ; but I 
have not yet been able to get any of them to a final issue. I think, 
too, that the prospect for the fine-wool business rather impnn'es. 
AVliat burdens me most of all is the appreliension that Mr. Perkins 
exjjects of me in the way of bringing matters to a close what no 
living man can possibly bring about in a short time, and that he is 
getting out of patience and becoming distrustful. If I could be with 
him in all I do, or could possibly attend to all my cares, aud give him 
full explanations by letter of all my movements, I should be greatly 
relieved. He is a most noble-spirited man, to whom I feel most 
deeply indebted ; and no amount of money would atone to my feel- 
ings for the loss of confidence and cordiality on his part. If my sons, 
who are so near him, conduct wisely and faithfully and kindly in 
what they have undertaken, they will, beyond the possibility of a 
doubt, secure to themselves a full reward, if they should not be the 
means of entirely relieving a father of his burdens. 

I will once more repeat an idea 1 have often mentioned in regard 
to business life in general. A world of pleasure and of success is the 
sure and constant attendant upon early rising. It makes all the busi- 
ness of the day go off with a peculiar cheerfulness, while the effects of 
the contrary course are a great aud constant draft upon one's vitality 
and good temper. When last at home in Essex, I spent every day 
but the first afternoon surveying or in tracing out old lost boundaries, 
about which I was very successful, working early and late, at two dol- 
lars per day. This was of the utmost service to both body and mind ; 
it exercised me to the full extent, and for the time being almost en- 
tirely divested my mind from its burdens, so that I returned to my 
task very greatly refreshed and invigorated. 

John asks me about Essex. I will say that the fiimily there were 
living upon the bread, milk, butter, pork, chickens, potatoes, turnips, 
carrots, etc., of their own raising, and the most of them abundant in 
quantity and superior in quality. I have nowhere seen such pota- 
toes. Essex County so abounds in hay, grain, potatoes, and ruta- 
bagas, etc., that I find unexpected difficulty in selling for cash oats 
and some other things we have to spare. Last year it was exactly 
tlie reverse. The weather was charming up to the 15th November, 
when I left, and never before did the country seem to hold out so many 
things to entice me to stay on its soil. Nothing but a strong sense of 
duty, obligation, and propriety would keep me from laying my bones 
to rest there ; but 1 shall cheerfully endeavor to make that sense my 
guide, God always helping. It is a source of tlic utmost comfort to 
feel that I retain a warm place in tlie sympathies, affections, and 



1850.1 JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 77 

confidence of my own most familiar acquaintance, my family ; and 
allow me to say that a man can hardly get into difficulties too big to 
be surmounted, if he has a firm fo(Jlhold at home. Bemember that. 

I am glad Jason has made the sales he mentions, on many accounts. 
It will relieve his immediate money wants, a thing that made me 
somewhat unhappy, as I could not at once supply them. It will 
lessen his care and the need of being gone from home, perhaps to the 
injury somewhat of the flock that lies at the foundation, and possibly 
to the injury of Mr. Perkins's feelings on that account, in some 
measure. He will certainly have less to divide his attention. I had 
felt some worried about it, and I most heartily rejoice to hear it ; for 
you may all rest assured that the old flock has been, and so long as 
we have anything to do with it will continue to be, the main root, 
either directly or indirectly. In a few short months it will afl'ord 
another crop of wool. 

I am sorry for John's trouble in his throat ; I hope he will soon 
get relieved of that. I have some doubt about the cold-water prac- 
tice in cases of that kind, but do not suppose a resort to medicines of 
much account. Regular out-of-door labor I believe to be one of the 
best medicines of all that God has yet provided. As to Essex, I have 
no question at all. For stock-growing and dairy business, consider- 
ing its healthfuluess, cheapness of price, and nearness to the two best 
markets in the Union (New York and Boston), I do not know where 
we could go to do better. I am much refreshed by your letters, and 
until you hear from me to the contrary, shall be ghul to have you 
write me here often. Last night I was up till after midnight writing 
to Mr. Perkins, and perhaps used some expressions in my rather 
cloudy state of mind that I had better not have used. I mentioned 
to him that Jason understood that he disliked his management of the 
flock somewhat, and was worried about that and the poor hay he 
would have to feed out during the winter. I did not mean to write 
him anything offensive, and hope he will so understand me. 

There is now a fine plank road completed from Westport to Eliza- 
bethtown. We have no hired person about the family in Essex. 
Henry Thompson is clearing up a piece of ground that the "colored 
brethren " chopped for me. He boards with the family ; and, by the 
way, he gets Ruth out of bed so as to have breakfast before light, 
mornings. 

I want to have you save or secure the first real prompt, fine-look- 
ing, black shepherd puppy whose ears stand erect, that you can get ; 
I do not care about his training at all, further than to have him 
learn to come to you when bid, to sit down and lie down "when 
told, or something in the way of play. Messrs. Cleveland & Titus, 
our lawyers in New York, are anxious to get one for a ]ilaything ; 



78 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

and I am well satisfied, that, shuuld I give them oue as a matter of 
friendship, it would be more appreciated by them, and do more to 
secure their best services in our suit with PickersgiU, than would a 
hundred dollars paid them in the way of fees. I want Jason to ob- 
tain from Mr. Perkins, or anywhere he can get them, two good junk - 
bottles, have them thoroughly cleaned, and filled with the chen-y 
wine, being very careful not to roil it up before filling tlie bottles, — 
providing good corks and filling them perfectly full. These I want 
him to pack safely in a very small strong box, which he can make, 
direct them to Perkins •& Brown, Springfield, Mass., and send them 
by express. We can efi'ect something to purpose by producing un- 
adulterated domestic wines. They will command great prices.^ It 
is again getting late at night ; and I close by wishing every present 
as well as future good. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Spkixgfiei.d, Mass., Dec. 6, 1850. 

Dear son John, — Your kind letter is received. By same mail 
I also have one from Mr. Perkins in answer to one of mine, in which 
I did in no very indistinct way introduce some queries, not altogether 
unlike those your letter contained. Indeed, your letter throughout is 
so much like wluit has often passed through my own mind, that were 
I not a little sceptical yet, I should conclude you had access to some 
of the knocking spirits.'^ I shall not write you very long, as I mean 

1 This fixes the date of the anecdote told by Mr. Leonard concerning 
the wines which Brown bad to exhibit ; it must have been after this time, 
and probably in 1851. John Brown, Jr., has been for many years cultivat- 
ing the grape on an island in Lake Erie, and his brother Jason is now 
doing the same in Southern California. Their principles, however, forbid 
them to make wine. 

2 This was the period when tlie Fox family, at Rochester, N. Y., were 
astonishing the world with their knockings and the messages from another 
world which these were supposed to convey. John Brown, Jr., was inclined 
to believe in the reality of this "rat-hole revelation " (as Emerson described 
it to Henry Ward Beccher) ; but his father was sceptical. He talked with 
his son at the American House, Springfield, in 1848, concerning this mat- 
ter, and told him that the Bible contains the whole revelation of God ; that 
since that canon was closed, "the book has been sealed." In his later 
years he was less confident of this ; and in 1859, when he last talked with 
John Brown, Jr. , on the subject, he said he had received messages, as he 
believed, from Dianthe Lusk, which had directed his conduct in cases of 
perplexity. Milton Lusk has been a believer in " Spiritualism " for many 
years ; indeed, he is naturally heretical, and was excommunicated by the 
church in Hudson, in 1835. 



1853.] JOKN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 79 

to write again before many days. Mr. Perkins's letter, to which I 
just alluded, appears to be written in a very kind spirit ; and so long 
as he is right-side up, I shall by no means despond ; indeed, I think 
the fog clearing away from our matters a little. I certainly wish to 
understand, and I mean to understand, " how the land lies " before 
taking any important steps. You can assist me very much about 
being posted up ; but you will be able to get hold of the right end 
exactly by having everything done up first-rate, and by becoming 
very familiar, and not by keeping distant. I most earnestly hope 
that should I lose caste, my family will at least prove themselves 
w<jrthy of respect and confidence; and I am sure that my three sons 
in Akron can do a great job for themselves and for the family if 
they behave themselves wisely. Your letter s<» well expresses my 
own feelings, that were it not for one expression I would mail it 
with one I have just finished, to Mr. Perkins. Can you not all 
three effectually secure the name of good business men this winter? 
That you are considered honest and rather intelligent I have no 
doubt. 

I do not believe the losses of our firm will in the end prove .so very 
severe, if Mr. Perkins can only be kept resolute and patient in regard 
to matters. I have often made mistakes by' being too hasty, and 
mean hereafter to ''ponder well the path of my feet." I mean to 
pursue in all things such a course as is in reality wise, and as will in 
the end give to myself and family the least possible cause for regret. 
I believe Mr. Newton is ]>roperly authorized to take testimony. If 
so, I wish you to ascertain the fact and write me ; if not, I want you 
to learn through Mr. Perkins who would be a suitable person for that 
business, as I expect before many weeks to want your testimony, 
and I want you to give me the name. I forgot to write to Mr. Per- 
kins about it, and have sealed up my letter to him. I mentioned 
about your testimony, but forgot what I should have written. 
Your afiectionate father, 

John Brown. 

As may be inferred from these letters, the settlement of 
Perkins & Brown's affairs involved several lawsuits, some 
brought by them and some against them. These were tried 
in several places, — at New York, at Troy, and in one in- 
stance at Boston. The latter was tried before Caleb Gushing 
in the winter of 1852-53, and Avas one of the last cases 
heard by Judge Gushing before leaving his seat in the Su- 
preme Gourt of Massachusetts to take his place in President 
Pierce's cabinet as attorney-general. The suit was brought 



80 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1853. 

by the Burlington Mills Company of Vermont, represented 
in Boston by Jacob Sleeper and others, against John Brown 
and others, for a breach of contract in supplying wool to 
these mills of certain grades ; and the damages were laid at 
sixty thousand dollars. It was pending for a long time, the 
counsel against Brown being liufus Choate and Francis B. 
Hayes, and his own senior counsel being the eminent New 
York lawyer, Joshua V. Spencer. It finally came to trial 
in Boston, Jan. 14, 1853, and after several postponements 
and the taking of much testimony it was settled, Feb. 3, 
1853, by a compromise between the counsel, the anticipated 
decision of the court being against Brown. About a year 
later he won a similar suit in a New York court ; and he 
always believed that he should have won his Boston suit, if 
the case had been tried on its merits. An appeal was taken 
from the verdict in Brown's favor, at Troy, IST. Y. ; and 
while this was pending, in the spring of 1854, he was at Ver- 
non, near Utica, N. Y., assisting his counsel, Mr. Jenkins, 
to prepare the case. A person in the law-office of his coun- 
sel tells this anecdote, to show hoAV his love of liberty 
interfered with his business : — 



'' The morning after the news of the Burns afikir reached Vemori, 
Brown went at his work iininediately after breakfast; but in a few 
minutes started up from his chair, wallved rapidly across the room 
several times, then suddenly turned to his counsel and said, ' I am 
going to Boston.' ' Going to Boston ! ' said the astonished lawyer ; 
' why do you want to go to Boston '! ' Old Brown continued walking 
vigorously, and replied, ' Anthony Burns must be released, or I will 
die in the attempt.' The counsel dropped his pen in consternation ; 
then he began to remonstrate: told him the suit had been in progress 
a long time, and a verdict just gained ; it was appealed from, and that 
appeal must be answered in so many days, or the whole labor would 
be lost; and no one was sufficiently familiar with the whole case 
except himself. It to(^ik a long and earnest talk with old Brown to 
persuade him to remain. His memory and acuteness in that long 
and tedious lawsuit often astonished his counsel. While here he 
wore an entire suit of snuff'-colored cloth, the coat of a decidedly Qua- 
kerish cut in collar and skirt. He wore no beard, and was a clean- 
shaven, scrupulously neat, well dressed, quiet fdd gentleman. He 
was, hoM'ever, notably resolute in all that he did." 



1851.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 81 

At this time Brown was fifty-four years old, but looked 
five years beyond his age ; and this aged appearance was 
increased by his hardships in Kansas, so that he might have 
passed for seventy at his death in 1859. 

The following letters relate to these lawsuits : — 

Steubenville, Ohio, May 15, 1851. 
Dear son John, — I wrote you some days since, euclosing ten 
dollars, and requesting you to acknowledge it, and also to hold your- 
self in readiness to go to Pittsburgh when called upon ; since which 
I have not heard from you. I am now on my way to Akron ; and 
as our causes at Pittsburgh have been continued until next fall, we 
shall not need you there until then. We have now no prospect of 
any trial until fall, except with Henry Warren ; and we wish you to 
so arrange your business that you can leave for Troy upon a short 
notice. I also want you to keep me advised at Akron of your where- 
abouts, so that I may call upon you should I have time. I did ex- 
pect to go to Hartford when I left home, but find I must alter my 
course. I was in Essex on Tuesday last. Left Ruth and husband 
well, and vei-y comfortably situated. We seem to get along as pleas- 
antly as I expected, so far ; can't say how long it will be so ; hope 
we may continue. I want you to write often and let us know how 
you get along. Had sad work among our Saxony ewes and lambs 
by dogs, Saturday night last : probably forty killed and wounded. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Cleveland, Oct. 30, 1851. 
Dear son John, — I have just landed here from Buffalo, and 
expect to leave for Akron by next train. As soon as I learn at what 
time we shall want you at Pittsburgh I will let you know ; but I 
now suppose we shall want you there immediately, and wish you to 
hold yourself in constant readiness. Have heard nothing further 
from home or from Essex since we parted. Met Mr. iJenkins at Al- 
bany, and we came on together to Utica. He was pleased with the 
course we took at Lauesboro, and was in very good spirits ; says he 
learned through Brigham, while at Albany, that Warren's attorneys 
feel pretty well cornered up ; ^ says we did right in not taking your 
deposition in Burlington case. 

Your affectionate father, John Brown. 

^ In a previous letter to his family, Brown says (Oct. 6, 1851) : " I have 
strong hopes of success finally in disposing of our business here [Troy], but 
it is exceedingly troublesome and expensive." 

6 



82 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1852. 

Akrox, Ohio, Dec. 1, 1851. 

Dear son John, — Youre, dated November 14, came on in season, 
but an increased amount of cares has prevented me from answering 
sooner. One serious difficulty has been with Frederick, -who has 
been very wild again. He is again, however, to all appearance 
nearly recovered from it by the return to an abstemious course of 
living, — almost, if not quite, the only means used. He had gradu- 
ally slid back into his old habit of indulgence in eating, the effect of 
wliich I consider as being now fully demonstrated. I now expect to 
set out for Troy on Wednesday of this week, at furthest ; and if you 
do not see me at Vernon before the stage leaves on Thursday, I wish 
you to take it on that day, so as to meet me at Bennet's Temperance 
House in Buffalo. The going is too bad to go by private convey- 
ance, and I am yet at a loss how I can get through from Warren 
to Vernon with my trunk of books, etc. I intend to bring my 
watch with me. I have accomplished a good deal in the way of 
preparation for winter, but shall be obliged to leave a great deal un- 
done. If you do not find me at Buflido (or before you get there), 
you may wait there not longer than till Saturday evening, and then 
take the cars for Troy. You will learn at Bennet's whether I am 
behind or not. If you have not funds sufficient to take you to Troy, 
you can probably borrow a little, to be refunded immediately when I 
see you, by Perkins Sl Brown. 

Yours, J. B. 

New York, March 11, 1852. 
Simon Perkins, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — I called on Messrs. Cleveland «& Titus to-day. Found 
Mr. Cleveland intended to charge us three hundred dollars as a bal- 
ance of accounts. I asked him for the principal items of his charge, 
which he promised to make up, and leave, directed to you, care of 
Messrs. Delano, Dunlevy, & Co., 39 Wall Street. He said he could 
not make it up without keeping me detained over night. As I couhl 
see no advantage to be derived from waiting, after hearing his expla- 
nation of the matter, I concluded not to wait. He says he drew an 
amended bill after drawing the first complaint, and that he gavt; 
more time to that than he did to the complaint. Since I left him I 
have thought this was not quite right, after the conversation we had 
with him together, and after our letter to them dated May 16, 1851. 
He said to me that if I was not satisfied with the charge it should be 
reduced. I did not tell him wliat T thought; but if I had thought 
of our letter at the time I should have asked him to refer to it, as 
I think he went contrary to his own advice, and also to our last 
instructions. If you call on liim, I wisli you would ask hhn to read 



I 



1852. J JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 83 

that letter to you. I think it can do no harm, and that he will prob- 
ably abate something from his charge. I should not now, after 
reflecting upon it, hesitate to say that I think he ought to do it (and 
since looking up the copy of our letter to them). In haste. 

Your friend, John Brown. ^ 

P. S. If you call on Cleveland &. Titus, and can find room, I 
M-ould be glad to have you bring the papers in that case. I forgot 
to ask for them. 

Yours truly, J. B. 

The Boston trial was put off from time to time, — from 
September, 1852, to November, aud then to December. John 
Brown wrote to his son John in September : '' When our suit 
comes on in November, we shall not need to detain you but 
a few days, and the w^ant of your testimony might work our 
ruin. Write me on receipt of this." Nov. 20, 1852, he wrote 
again, — 

I parted with Fi-ederick at Ravenna, on his way to your place ; 
he has told you of the death of our Mr. Jenkins (of Vernon, N. Y., a 
brother of Timothy Jenkins). We have employed Timothy Jenkins, 
M. C, to finish up his business, and I am now on my way to assist 
him to understand it, previous to having our trial with 0. J. Richard- 
son. We now expect our trial at Boston to come ofi" sometime about 
the middle of December, and hope to see the end of it before the 
close. We hope the situation of your family is such, before this time, 
that you are relieved in regard to the anxiety you have expressed, so 
that you can leave at once, and go on when you get notice of the time. 
I will send you funds for your expenses aud the earhest possible iu- 
fijrmation of the exact time when the trial will come on. All were well 
at home and at Hudson this morning. I should wait and go on with 
you, did not our Warren business require my iannediate attention. I 
suppose our Pittsburgh cause is decided before this ; but we had not 
heard from it when I left. I will only add that you all have my most 
earnest desire for your real welfare. Will you drop me a line (care 
of A. B. Ely, Esq., Boston), on receipt of this, to let me hear how 
you all do ? 

Your afiectionate father, John Brown. 

1 On the same date (March 11, 1852), but from New Haven, Brown 
writes to his family : " I received Henry's letter of the 3d at Troy, which 
place 1 left yesterday in order to meet Mr. Perkins, who has come on here 
on railroad business. I have at last got through trying our cause at Troy, 
but have not yet got a decision. I think it will, without doubt, be in our 
favor." 



84 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [\Sb2. 

Vernon, Oneida County, N. Y., Dec. 8, 1852. 
Dear son John, — I have this moment got a line from Mr. Ely, 
saying onr trial at Boston will not come on until the first week in 
January next. I give you this early notice, in hopes that it will re- 
lieve your mind in a measure, and that it will be more convenient for 
you to be absent at that time. I do not know whether I shall be able 
to go home again before that time or not. Will write you hereafter 
when to set out for Boston, and supply you with funds for expenses. 
My best wishes for you all. 

Akron, Ohio, Dec. 9, 1852. 

Dear son John, — I reached home last night, and found all well. 
I came by the Erie Railroad, and got along very well until I left 
Dunkirk. Fare from Dunkirk to Cleveland, $8.90 ; expenses from 
same to same, $4.02, and was two and a half entire days getting 
through, the roads being vastly worse than when we went out. Had 
I expected so hard and so expensive a trip, I should not have re- 
turned. I mean to go back by Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, there 
being on that route but twenty-eight miles of sleighing, from Trt)y to 
Hudson, and that on a good road. I intend to get back to Troy by 
the 17th if I can. Have not yet seen Mr. Perkins, to have any con- 
versation with him of any account. Whatever you may do in the 
pre[)aration of papers will be all well for the Burlington case. You 
will- have saved a great amount of exposure, hardshij), and expense by 
staying behind. »' 

Y^our aflectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Vergennes, Vermont, Dec. 22, 1852. 
Dear son John, — I have written Mr. Perkins to send you money 
for expenses, so that you may set out for Boston by the 21st Jamnu-y 
at furthest. I am too much used up about money to remit, or I should 
do so. I have written Mr. Perkins to come on himself by way df 
Vernon; but if he does not get on, or send you money in time, do 
not on any account delay setting out, if you have to borrow tlie 
money for a few days. The money will be sent, and if it does not 
reach you in time, Wealthy ^ can use it to pay, should you not have 
it on hand. Mr. Beebe has got home from Euro])e, which we think 
very fortunate. Mr. Harrington is here with me from Troy ; he has 
got his case against Warren affirmed din-ing the last week. I hope 
this may prove a sickness to Warren about standing out against us. 

1 The wife of John Brown, Jr. 



1851.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 85 

I am so much in haste, and have my mind so full, that I can think 
of no more now, except that I stop at the Exchange Coffee House in 
Boston. May God in mercy bless you all. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

This trial, so anxiously awaited and prepared for, went 
against Brown, as has been said, and he withdrew from 
trade and litigation, for which he was ill-fitted, to the life 
of a shepherd and a pioneer once more. Profiting by his 
experience, however, he gave this good advice to his son 
John, ^Yho at one time was tempted to take up the business 
of wool-buying : — 

Hudson, Ohio, May 20, 1851. 
Dear son John, — I learn by brother Jeremiah, who has just 
returned, that you have engaged yourself to buy wool. I have no 
objection to your doing so ; but an untiring anxiety for your welfare 
naturally inclines me to remind you of some of the temptations to 
which you may be exposed, as well as some of the difficulties you 
may meet with. Wool- buyers generally accuse each other of being 
unscrupulous liars; and in that one thing perhajjs they are not so. 
Again, there are but very few persons who need money, that can 
wholly resist the temptation of feeling too rich, while handUng any con- 
siderable amount of other people's money. They are also liable to 
devote God's blessed Sabbath to conversation or contrivances for fur- 
thering their schemes, if not to the examination and purchase of wool. 
Now, I would not have you barter away your conscience or good name 
for a commission. You will find that many wiU pile away their wool, 
putting the best outside, and will be entirely unwilling you should 
handle it all. I would at once leave such lots, unless that point is 
yielded. I would have an absolute limit of prices on the different 
grades. You can throw into different grades, pretty fast, a lot of wool, 
so as to see pretty nearly whether it will average above or below the 
grade you wish generally to buy. Do not let your anxiety to buy carry 
you one inch beyond your judgment. Do not be influenced a particle 
by what you hear others have offered. Never make an absolute offer 
to any one for his ivool. If persons will not set a price on it, wliicli you 
feel confident you are autliorized to pay, you can asJc them if they will 
not take so much, without really making any bid. If you make bids, 
some other buyer will follow you, and get the wool by offering a 
trifle more. A very trifling difference will very often do as much 
towards satisfying persons as would a greater one. You will gener- 



86 LIFE AND LETTJ:RS of JOHN BROWN. [1851. 

ally buy to the best advantage where the wool is generally good and 
washed; yon can buy to better advantage by finding a good stand, 
and there buying no more than you have the funds on hand to pay 
fur. Do not agree to pay money you have not on hand. Remember 
that. Say who you are employed to buy for frankly if asked. The 
less you have to say about the why or wherefore the better, other 
than that you are limited. A book containing the grading of numer- 
ous lots of wool is with me at Akron, to which you can have access; 
it may be of service to you about knowing liow diflerent lots will 
average. Buy you a superior cow, one that you have milked ytnir- 
self, and know to give a good quantity of milk, before getting a 
horse. The getting of a horse will get for you numerous absolute 
wants you would otherwise not have. All well. Shall want to know 
where to find you. 

Your aflectionate father, 

John Brown. 



We see here the homely, Franklin-like wisdom and Con- 
necticut caution of the man. In his whole business life, 
though his judgment w^as often at fault, his uprightness was 
manifest. Though unfortunate, he was never unjust. He 
was industrious in whatever he undertook, fair and scru- 
pulous in his business transactions, but with a touch of eccen- 
tricity, which showed itself particularly, his friends thought, 
in his deeds of charity. While living in Pennsylvania he 
declined to do military duty, and paid his fine rather than 
encourage war by learning the art, resolving, as Thoreau 
said in 1859, '^ that he would have nothing to do with any 
war unless it were a war for liberty." He caused the arrest 
of an offender there, who had done him no injury, but w\as 
a plague to'the community ; and while this man was in 
prison, Brown supplied his wants and supported his family 
until the trial, out of his own earnings. One of the appren- 
tices in his tanyard at that time bears testimony to the 
singular ])robity of his life. " I have known him from 
boyhood through manhood," said Mr. Oviatt, of Richfield, 
*' and he has always been distinguished for his truthfulness 
and integrity." Another Ohio acquaintance, who first knew 
him in 1836, says : " Soon after my removal to Akron, he 
became a client of mine, subsequently a resident of the 
township in which the town of Akron is situated, and during 



1842.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 87 

a portion of the time a member of a Bible-class taught by 
me. I always regarded him as a man of more than ordinary 
mental capacity, of very ardent and excitable temperament, 
of unblemished moral character ; a kind neighbor, a good 
Christian, deeply imbued with religious feelings and sympa- 
thies. In a business point of view, his temperament led him 
into pecuniary difliculties, but I never knew his integrity 
questioned by any person whatsoever." Mr. Baldwin, of 
Hudson, son-in-law of that Squire Hudson for whom the 
town was named, said that he first knew John Brown in 
1814, and always found him " of rigid integrity and ardent 
temperament," which describes him well. When he went 
to live in Springfield, he was for some years the client of the 
late Chief-Justice Chapman, who called him "a quiet and 
peaceable citizen and a religious man," and further said : 
*' Mr. Brown's integrity was never doubted, and he was hon- 
orable in all his dealings, but peculiar in many of his notions, 
and adhering to them with great obstinacy." This was true, 
also, of the chief-justice, and is a Xew-England trait. But 
for Brown's " peculiar notions " and "great obstinacy," there 
would have been no occasion to write this biography. 



John Brown, Jr., who was well acquainted with his 
father's business life from 1837 onward, has furnished 
me this statement bearing on several of the events in this 
period of his life : — 

" The bankruptcy of 1842 had Httle to do with any speculation in 
wool, for at that time my father was not a wool-dealer on a hirge 
scale, but sold his own ' clip,' as other farmers did. His failure, 
as I now remember, was wholly owing to his purchase of land on 
credit, — including the Haymaker farm at Franklin, which he bought 
in connection with Seth Thompson of Hartford, Trumbull County, 
Ohio, and his individual purchase of three rather large adjoining 
farms in Hudson. When he bought those farms, the rise in value 
of his place in Franklin was such that good judges estimated his 
property worth fully twenty thousand dollars. He was then thought 
to be a man of excellent business judgment, and was chosen one of 
the Directors of a Bank at Cuyahoga Falls. The financial crash 



88 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1842. 

came in 1837, and down came all of father's castles, and buried the 
reputation he had achieved of possessing at least good common-sense 
in respect to business matters. In his conversations with me in later 
years respecting the mistakes he had made, I have heard him say 
tliat ' these grew out of one root, — doing business on credit.' 
' Where loans are amply secured,' he would say, ' the bornjwer, 
not the lender, takes the risks, and all the contingencies incident to 
business ; wliile the accumulations of interest and the coming of 
pay-day are as sure as death. lustead of being thoroughly im- 
bued with the doctrine of ^^a?/ as you go,' he said, ' I started out in 
life with the idea that nothing could be done without capital, and 
that a poor man must use his credit and borrow ; and this pernicious 
notion has been the rock on which I, as well as so many (jthers, 
have split. The practical effect of this false doctrine has been to 
keep me like a toad under a harrow most of my business life. Run- 
ning into debt includes so much of evil that I hope all my children 
will shun it as they would a pestilence.' 

"His imprisonment in the couuty jail had nothing to do with any 
of his wool matters, but related entirely to the affair of ' the old log 
fort.' The purchaser of the Hudson farm got out a warrant against 
father, Jason, Owen, and me for breach of the peace, alleging 
that he feared personal harm in his attempts at taking possession ; 
and, alleging further that he could not obtain justice in Hudson, he 
swore out his warrant before a Justice in an adjoining township. 
We made no resistance whatever to the service of the writ, and 
appeared for examination before the Justice in that town, who was 
plainly in full sympathy with the complainant ; and after a brief 
hearing he required us to enter- into bonds for our appearance at the 
county court in Akron. These we would not give; and next day 
we went to jail. The sheriff, a friend of father, and who under- 
stood the merits of the case, went through the form of turning the 
jail-key on us, then opened the door and gave us the liberty of the 
town, putting us upon our honor not to leave it. We were then taken 
to board at a nice private residence, at county expense, for three or 
four days only, as it was just before the sitting of Court. On call- 
ing the case it was ' nolled,' and we returned home. This sclieme of 
the purchaser resulted in his getting possession f)f one of the fine 
farms wliich father then owned in Hudson, and that too within half 
an hour after our arrest. This is all there was in the matter of our 
having once been in Akron Jail. 

" In correction of what you told me Colonel Perkins said to ilis- 
parage my father's skill as a shepherd, his success in business, 
etc., let me remark that the correspondence of Perkins & Brown, if 
exhibited, would not confirm these statements. Since father had 



1850.] JOHN BROWN AS A BUSINESS MAN. 89 

become well known as a grower of the finest Saxony wool by 
the fiue-wool growers of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and somewhat 
of Western Virginia, when these men all thought they were vic- 
timized by the manufacturers of fine wool, father was urged by 
these growers to undertake the work of grading their wool and 
selling it on commission, in hopes to obtain in this way fairer 
prices. Mr. Perkins not only ' allowed ' father to undertake this, 
but entered heartily into the plan, which for a year or two was 
successful, until the manufacturers discovered that Perkins & 
Brown were receiving a large share of the really fine wool grown in 
this country, and that if they bought it they must pay a fairer price 
for it. This would greatly diminish the profits heretofore made by 
the manufacturers of these very fine wools ; and so this high-handed 
attempt, not to ' control,' as stated by Mr. Musgrave, but to 
influence the price somewhat ' in the interest of the farmers,' must 
be squelched. The manufacturers combined, and 'boycotted' these 
upstart dealers. From the quoted prices in the London market of 
grades of wool not equal, as father well knew, to the wool he had, 
he became satisfied that rather than take the prices -which the com- 
bination would pay it would be better to send the wool abroad. The 
clique had long arms, and finally bought at low rates and brought 
back the wool he shipped to London ; and the farmers, most of 
whom had consented to the undertaking of sending it abroad, suflered 
great loss. Thus ended the wool business of Perkins & Brown." 

The letter-books of Perkins & Brown, which came into 
the hands of John Brown, Jr. (May, 1885), quite confirm 
this statement. 



90 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1826. 



CHAPTER IV. 
PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 

THE Brown family were born to be pioneers, and none 
of them more than our Kansas hero. His first Ameri- 
can ancestor was a pioneer at Plymouth in 1620 ; the next 
generation were pioneers in Connecticut ; and their descend- 
ants went from wilderness to wilderness until New Eng- 
land was fairly civilized. Then Owen Brown, of Torrington, 
took up the march again, and encamped in Ohio, where his 
famous son took the first lessons of a pioneer among the 
Indians of Cuyalioga and the Great I'ortage. This expe- 
rience ended, and the attractions of civilization proving too 
weak for him, he pushed eastward into the woods of Penn- 
sylvania, where we have seen him serving as postmaster, 
and planning a negro village for the education of that en- 
slaved race. 

What his way of life was at Richmond has been told by 
one of his neighbors, Mr. Delamater, who was born at 
Whitehall, N. Y., but remembers when Brown built there 
in 1826-27, and cleared up his small farm.^ The houses of 
John Brown and of the elder Delamater were four miles 
apart ; and in these was kept the school of the neighbor- 
hood, — at Brown's house in the Avinter, and at Delamater's 
in the summer. Both houses were of logs, with two large 
rooms on the ground floor, — one used as kitchen, dining- 
room, and living-room; and the other for the school, and as 
a sleeping-room. In family worship, which daily took 
place in the family room. Brown gave each person present 
some part to take, — himself leading in prayer. The post- 
office, of course, was kept in this log-cabin of Brown, and 

1 Brown owned five luindred acres of Iniid heavily timbered with hem- 
lock, the bark of which he used for tannii),£;. Dehimater's log-house was 
near the State Road, about eight miles east of Meadville, 



1824.1 PIONEEK LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 91 

the men who worked in his tannery boarded with him. It 
was here that his first wife died, and to this cabin he brought 
his second wife (who was related to the Delamaters) in 
1833. Ruth and Frederick were born in this house, and 
John, Owen, and Jason received a part of their schooling- 
there. Their father kept a record of their boyish sins, and 
on one occasion, at least, when they amounted to twenty 
in number, he allowed one blow of the rod for each fault ; 
but only half the blows were given to the boy, who then 
took the rod and punished his father with just as many 
blows. This was an earlier example of Mr. Alcott's method 
of punishment in his Boston school.^ 

Among the childish recollections of the eldest son (who 
was born in a log-cabin near where his father built in 1824 
a large frame house, which is still standing) are the follow- 
ing, which relate chiefly to Eichmond, but date back to the 
Hudson tannery : — 

" Father had a rule not to threaten one of his children. He com- 
manded, and there was obedience. Up to this time (1824) I had not 
heard a threat. I was playing round where the timbers ior the new 
house were being hewed, and occasionally I picked up the tools be- 
longing to Mr. Herman Peck the carpenter, who spoke up sharp to 
me and said, ' John, put them down, or I '11 cut your ears oif ! ' Be- 
lieving he would do so, I scrambled under the timbers which were 
laid up on logs to be hewed (and in my hurry I bumped the back of 
my head on most of them as I went), and ran off to the tannery, in 
a room of which we were temporarily living ; for the log-house in 
which I was born had been torn down to give place to the new one. 
Besides the sharpest recollection of this, I have heard father mention, 

1 The family government of Brown was always strict, but with some- 
thing humorous about it too. His son John relates that when he and 
George Delamater were playing one winter evening in the school-room, and 
were so noisy as to disturb the father who was sitting in the kitchen. Brown, 
after repeating several times, *' Children, you make too much noise," all at 
once called out, " John and George, you may come here to me ! " Wlien 
they came and stood one on each side of him, he said, " Boys, I think you 
need to hear the bell ring." Then taking out his clasp-knife and opening 
it, he held it by the blade and tapped his son John with the handle, smartly 
on the top of the head. This made his mirthful expression change so 
'piickly that George burst out laughing. Thereupon Brown tapped George 
on the head, and Jolm burst out laughing. After " ringing the hell " twice 
or three times in this way their mirth was changed to melan(dioly. 



92 LITE AND LETTERS OE JOHN BROWN. [1829. 

when speaking of the matter of threatening children, how greatly 
alarmed I was uii that occasion. I cannot say how old I was then, — 
jjrobably less than three, — yet my memory of the event is clear. 1 
don't know the year when we moved to Pennsylvania, though I re- 
member the circumstances. Owen was then a baby. 

'' My first apprenticeship to the tanning business consisted of a three 
years' course at grinding bark with a blind horse. This, after mouths 
and years, became slightly monotonous. WHiile the other children 
were out at play in the sunshine, where the biids were singing, 1 
used to be tempted to let the old horse have a rather long rest, espe- 
cially when father was absent from home; and I would then join the 
others at their play. This subjected me to frequent admonitions and 
to some corrections for ' eye-service,' as father temied it. I did not 
fully appreciate the importance of a good supply of ground bark, and 
on general principles I think my occupation was not well calculated 
to promote a habit of faithful industry. The old blind horse, unless 
ordered to stop, would, like Tennyson's Brook, ' go on forever,' and 
thus keep up the appearance of business; but the creaking of the 
hungry mill would betray my neglect, and then father, hearing this 
from below, would come up and stealthily pounce upon me while at 
a window lo(jking upon outside attractions. He finally grew tired of 
these frequent slight admonitions for my laziness and other short- 
comings, and concluded to adopt with me a sort of book-account, 
something like this : — 

John, Dr., 

For disobeying mother 8 lashes 

" unfaithfulness at work 3 " 

" telling a lie 8 " 

This account he showed to me from time to time. On a certain Sun- 
day morning he invited me to accompany him from the house to the 
tannery, saying that he had concluded it was time for a settlement. 
We went into the upper or finishing room, and after a long and tear- 
ful talk over my faults, he again showed me my account, Avhich ex- 
hibited a fearful footing up of debits. I had no credits or off-sets, 
and was of course bankrupt. I then paid about one-third of the 
debt, reckoned in strokes from a nicely-prepared blue-beech switch, 
laid on ' masterly.' Then, to my utter astonishtnent, father stripped 
off" his shirt, and, seating himself on a block, gave me the whip and 
bade me ' lay it on ' to his bare back. I dared not refuse to obey, 
but at first I did not strike hard. 'Harder!' he said; 'harder, 
harder! ' until he received the balance of the account. Small drops of 
blood showed on liis back where the tip end of the tingling beech cut 
through. Thus ended the account and settlement, which was also 



1833.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 93 

my first practical illustration of the Doctrine of the Atonement. I 
was then too obtuse to perceive how Justice could be satisfied by in- 
fiictiug penalty upon the back of the innocent instead of the guilty ; 
but at that time I had not read the ponderous volumes of Jonathan 
Edwards's sermons which father owned." 

Ruth Tliompson, in her reminiscences of her father, 

says : — 

*' My mother, Dianthe Lusk Brown, died at Randolph, Pa., in 
August, 1882. The baptism of myself and my brother Fred must 
have been in the spring of 1832, when I was a little more than three 
yeai's old, and while my own mother was living. The first house- 
work that I remember is wiping some dishes for my new mother, 
perhaps when I was five years old. My father was married a second 
time to Mary Anne Day, July 11, 1833, and I continued to live at 
Randolph (now Richmond) uutU 1835, when we went back to Ohio, 
where my grandfather, Owen Brown, was living. While I was 
wiping the knives, at the time I mention, I cut my finger and was 
faint, so that father got some wine for me, and told me to drink it. 
The boys bothered me about that wine for a h>ng time, but were very 
careful never to say anything about it before father, who was some- 
times very stern and strict. He used to whip me quite often for tell- 
ing lies, but I can't remember his ever punishing me but once when 
I thought I did n't deserve it, and then he looked at me so stern that 
I did n't dare to tell the truth. He had such a way of saying ' tut, 
tut ! ' if he saw the first sign of a lie in us, that he often frightened us 
children. When we were moving back from Pennsylvania to Ohio, 
father stopped at a house and asked for a pail of water and a cup to 
give us a drink ; but when he handed the cup of M'ater to mother ho 
said, with a queer, disgusted look, * This pail has sore ears.' 

" When I first began to go to school, I found a piece of calico one 
day behind one of the benches, — it was not large, but seemed quite 
a treasure to me, and I did not show it to any one until I got home. 
Fatlier heard me then telling about it, and said, ' Don't you know 
what girl lost it ? ' I told him I did not. ' Well, when you go to 
school to-morrow take it with you, and find out if you can who 
lost it. It is a trifling thing, but always remember that if you 
should lose anything you valued, no matter how small, you would 
want the person that found it to give it back to you.' The impres- 
sion he made on me about that little piece of calico has never been 
forgotten. Before I had learned to write, the school-teacher wanted 
all the scholars to write a composition or read a piece. Father 
wanted me to read one of ^sop's fables, — I can't remember what 



94 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1838. 

fable. Brother John said he would write it for me. ' No,' I said, ' I 
had rather have one of the other boys write it, for if you do the whole 
school will soon know I did not write it.' My father spoke up quickly 
and said, ' Never appear to be what you are not, — honesty is the 
best policy.' When I was telling something done by another girl 
that I thought was wrung, he said, ' Who made you to differ f ' He 
showed a great deal of tenderness to me ; and one thing I always 
noticed was my father's peculiar tenderness and devotion to his father. 
In cold weather he always tucked the bedclothes around grandfather, 
when he went to bed, and would get up in the night to ask him if he 
slept warm, — always seeming so kind and loving to him that his 
example was beautiful to see. He used to tell us a story of a man 
whose old father lived with him, and broke a plate while he was 
eating ; and then his son concluded to make him a trough to eat out 
of. While he was digging the trough, his little boy asked him what 
he was making. ' I am making a trough for your grandfather to eat 
out of.' The little boy said, ' Father, shall I make a trough for you 
to eat out of when you are old? ' This set the man thinking, and he 
concluded his father might still eat on a plate. He often told us 
when we were where old people were standing, always to offer them 
a seat if we had one, and used to quote this verse, ' Thou shalt 
rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man.' 
While we were living at Hudson, an old man, leading an old white 
ox, came to our house one rainy afternoon, asking for something to 
eat and to stay'over night. Father and the older boys were gone 
from home, and mother and we younger children were afraid of him, 
— he acted so strangely, did not talk much, but looked down all 
the time, and talked strangely when he said anything. Mother gave 
him something to eat, and told him there was a tavern a half mile 
from there, where he could stay. He went on, and we thought no 
more about him. The next Sunday father was talking to us about 
how we should treat strangers, and read this passage from the Bible, 
' Forget not to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained 
angels unawares.' Mother then told about the old man. John said, 
' I met that same old man as I was coming home from Franklin 
about midnight, riding his old white ox ; it was raining and cold.' 
When father heard that he said, ' Oh, dear ! no doubt he had no 
money, and they turned him off at the tavern, and he could get no 
place to stay, and was obliged to travel all night in the rain.' He 
seemed to feel really hurt about it. When his children were ill 
with scarlet fever, he took care of us himself, and if he saw persons 
coming to the house, would go to the gate and meet them, not wish- 
ing them to come in, for fear of spreading the disease. Some of his 
friends blamed him very much for not calling in a physician, — but 



1843] PIONEER LIEE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 95 

he brought tlie whole family through nicely, and without any of the 
terrible effects afterward, which many experience. Right away he 
became famous as a doctor, and those who blamed him most were 
the first to call for him when they were taken with the same disease. 
"As a shepherd, he showed the same watchful care over his sheep. 
I remember one spring a gi-eat many of his sheep had a disease 
called * grub in the head/ and when tlie lambs came the ewes would 
not own them. For two weeks he did not go to bed, but sat up or 
slept an liour or two at a time iu his chair, and then would take a 
lantern, go out and catch the ewes, and hold tliem while the lambs 
sucked. He would very often bring in a little dead-looking lamb, 
and put it in warm water and rub it until it showed signs of life, 
and then wrap it in a warm blanket, feed it warm milk with a tea- 
spoon, and wt)rk over it with such tenderness that in a few hours it 
would be capering around tlie ronm. One Monday morning I had 
just got my white clothes in a nice warm suds in the wash-tub, when 
he came in bringing a little dead-looliing lamb. There seemed to be 
no sign of life about it. Said he, ' Take out your clothes quick, and 
let me put this lamb in the water.' I felt a. little vexed to be hindered 
with my washing, and told him I did n't believe he could make it 
live ; but in an hour or two he had it running around the rooiri, and 
calling loudly for its mother. The next year he came in from the 
barn and said to me, 'Euth, that lamb that I hindered you with 
when you were washing, I have just sold for one hundred dollars.' 
It was a pure-blooded Saxony lamb." 

From Pennsylvania back to Ohio, in 1835-36, and from 
Ohio to Massachusetts in 1845-46, were for the Brown 
family a temporary recall from their frontier and pioneer 
duty to the hannts of civilization ; and in this interval the 
children of the second marriage were nearly all born, and 
in part educated. The older children also received some 
education which the backwoods could not furnish ; and it 
was seriously contemplated at one time to send John Brown, 
Jr., to West Point, where he might receive a military educa- 
tion in the national school. At Franklin in 1836 and during 
the short period when the wool business at Springfield was 
flourishing, John Brown had hopes of becoming a capitalist, 
— not for the sake of giving himself an easier life, but to 
educate his children better, and to lay up money with which 
he could carr}'- out his chosen purpose of setting the slaves 
free. This hope faded away, but the purpose. remained fixed, 



96 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1848. 

and was the occasion of his seeking once more the freedom 
and tlie hardships of a backwoodsman. On the anniversary 
of West India emancipation, August 1, 1846, Gerrit Smith, 
the agrarian emancipationist of New York, had offered to 
give one hundred thousand acres of his wild land in that 
State to such colored families, fugitive slaves or citizens 
of New York, as would occupy and cultivate them in 
small farms. Two years later (April 8, 1848) when a 
few of these families had established themselves in the 
Adirondac wilderness, John Brown visited Mr. Smith at 
Peterboro', New York, and proposed to take up land in 
the same region for himself and his children, while at 
the same time he would employ and direct the labor of 
those colored backwoodsmen who had settled there. Mr, 
Smith, who had inherited from his father landed prop- 
erty in more than lifty of the counties of New York, knew 
very well when he made his jjrincely offer that those who 
might accept it would need all the encouragement and di- 
rection they could receive from men like Brown,- for there 
were many difficulties in the way of its acceptance by the 
Southern fugitives and the free people of color in the 
Northern cities. The Adirondac counties were then, much 
more than now, a backwoods region, with few roads, schools, 
or cliurches, and very few good farms. The great current 
of summer and autumn travel, which now flows through it 
every year, had scarcely begun to move ; sportsmen from 
New York and New England, and the agents of men in- 
terested in iron-mines and smelting-forges, were the chief 
visitors. The life of a settler there was rough pioneer 
Avork : the forest was to be cut down and the land burned 
over ; the family supplies must be produced mainly in the 
household ; the men made their own sugar from the maple 
woods, and the women spun and wove the garments from 
the wool that grew on the backs of the farmers' sheep. 
Winter lingers there for six months out of the twelve, and 
neither wheat nor Indian corn will grow on these hillsides 
in ordinary years. The crops are grass, rye, oats, potatoes, 
and garden vegetables ; cows, and especially sheep, are the 
wealth of the farmer; and, as Colonel Higginson mentioned 
in 1859, the widow of Oliver Brown, when he was killed at 



1S49.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 97 

Harper's Ferry, was considered not absolutely penniless, 
because her young husband had left her five sheep, valued 
at ten dollars. Such a region was less attractive to the 
negroes than Canada, for it was as cold, less secure from 
the slave-hunter, and gave little choice of those humble but 
well-paid employments, indispensable in towns, to which 
the colored race naturally resort. There was no opening in 
the woods of Essex for waiters, barbers, coachmen, washer- 
women, or the other occupations for which negroes had been 
trained. 

In spite of these discouragements, at the date of Brown's 
first call at the hospitable home of Mr. Smith (where he 
was ever after a welcome visitor) a small colony of colored 
people had gone to North Elba in Essex County, to clear up 
the forest land, and were braving the hardships of the first 
year in the cold backwoods of Northern New York. Brown 
introduced himself to Mr. Smith, and made him this pro- 
posal : " I am something of a pioneer ; I grew up among the 
woods and wild Indians of Ohio, and am used to the climate 
and the way of life that your colony find so trying. I will 
take one of your farms myself, clear it up and plant it, and 
show my colored neighbors how such work should be done ; 
will give them work as I have occasion, look after them in 
all needful ways, and be a kind of father to them." His 
host knew the value of such services ; with his quick eye 
for the nobler traits of human nature, he saw the true 
character of Brown, and the arrangement was soon made. 
Brown purchased a farm or two, obtained the refusal of 
others, and in 1848-49, while still engaged in his wool busi- 
ness, he removed a part of his family from Springfield to 
North Elba, where they remained much of the time between 
1849 and 1864, and where they lived when he was attacking 
slavery in Kansas, in Missouri, and in Virginia. Besides 
the other inducements which this rough and bleak region 
offered him, he considered it a good refuge for his wife and 
younger children, when he should go on his campaign ; a 
place where they would not only be safe and independent, 
but could live frugally, and both learn and practise those 
habits of thrifty industry which Brown thought indispen- 
sable in the training of children. When he went there, his 

7 



98 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

youngest sou Oliver was ten years old, and his daughters 
Anna and Sarah were six and three years old. Ellen, his 
youngest child, was born afterwards. 

Brown soon fell in love with the region thus chosen for 
his home and burial-place. His romantic spirit, which in 
early life made him long to be a shepherd, made him also 
keenly alive to the attractions of the wild and sublime in 
Nature. Had he been born among these mountains he could 
not have felt their beauty more deeply. In the summer and 
early autumn, for a few months, this wilderness is charming. 
The mountains rise grand and beautiful on all sides ; the 
untamed forest clothes their slopes and fills up the plains 
and valleys, save where the puny labors of men have here 
and there rescued a bit of fertile land from its gloom. On 
such spots the houses are built, and around them grow the 
small cultivated crops that can endure the climate, while 
the woods and meadows are full of wild fruits. Many of 
the dwellings were then log-cabins ; and in the whole town- 
ship of North Elba there was scarcely a house worth a 
thousand dollars, or one which was finished throughout. 
Mrs. Brown's house, at my first visit, in 1857, had but two 
plastered rooms, yet two families lived in it, — and at my 
second visit, in February, ISGO, two widowed women besides, 
whose husbands were killed at Harper's Ferry. I slept on 
both occasions in a little chamber partitioned off with a rude 
framework, but not plastered, the walls only ornamented 
with a few pictures (among them a portrait of Brown) ; and 
in winter the snow sifted through the roof and fell upon the 
bed. I arrived at nightfall, closely pursued from the shore 
of Lake Champlain by a snowstorm, which murmured and 
moaned about the chamber all night ; and in the morning I 
found a small snowdrift on my coverlet, and another on the 
floor near the bed.^ This house had been built by John 
Brown about 1850, and the great rock beside which he lies 
buried is but a few rods from its door. At that time, far 
more than now, the wild raspberries and other fruits were 

1 The new-born babe of Oliver Brown (the captain's youngest son, who 
had been killed at Harper's Ferry four months before) died in the house 
that night, and the poor young mother did not long survive. 



1850.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 99 

in abuudance, the woods abounded in game, and the streams 
and lakes with lish. But the mode of life was rude and 
primitive, with no elegance, and little that we should call 
comfort, as will appear by the reminiscences of Mrs. Thomp- 
son, soon to be cited. The contrast between this region, in 
1849, and the thriving towns of Massachusetts, like Spring- 
field, was striking. 

One of the first things that Brown did in this wilderness 
was to introduce his favorite breed of cattle, and to exhibit 
them for a prize at the annual cattle-show of Essex County, 
in September, 1850. They were a grade of Devons, and the 
first stock of the kind that had ever been seen at the county 
fair. The agricultural society, in its annual report for 1850, 
said : " The appearance upon the grounds of a number of 
very choice and beautiful Devons, from the herd of Mr. 
John Brown, residing in one of our most remote and se- 
cluded towns, attracted great attention, and added much to 
the interest of the fair. The interest and admiration they 
excited have attracted public attention to the subject, and 
have already resulted in the introduction of several choice 
animals into this region." The same result, on a much 
grander scale, was observed some years later, when John 
Brown exhibited specimens of a choicer and bigger breed of 
men than had been seen lately in Virginia or New England. 
" We have no doubt," added the Essex County farmers, 
" that this influence upon the character of our stock will be 
permanent and decisive." 

Mrs. Kuth Thompson has given some anecdotes of the 
pioneer life at ISTorth Elba, whither she went at the age of 
twenty. She says : — 

" Before moving to North Elba, father rented a farm, having a 
good haru on it, and a one-story house, which seemed very small for 
a family of nine. Father said, ' It is smaU ; but the main thing is, 
all keep good-natured.' He had bouglit some fine Devon cattle in 
Connecticut, near his birthplace ; these my brothers Owen, Watson, 
and Salmon drove to North Elba. At Westport he bought a span of 
good horses, and hired Thomas Jefferson (a colored man, who with 
his fiunily were moving to North Elba from Troy) to drive them. He 
proved to be a careful and trusty man, and so father hired him as long 
as he stayed there, to be his teamster. Mr. JeSerson by his kind ways 



100 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

soon won the confidence of us all. He drove so carefully over the 
mountain roads that father thought he had been very fortunate in meet- 
ing him. The day we crossed the mountain from Keeue was rainy 
and dreary; but father kept our spirits up by pointing out some- 
thing new and interesting all the way. We stopped occasionally to get 
a cup of water from the sparkling streams, that were so clear we could 
see the bottom covered with clean sand and beautiful white pebbles. 
We never tired of looking at the mountain scenery, which seemed 
awfully grand. Father wanted us to notice how fragrant the air was, 
filled with the perfume of the spruce, hemlock, and balsams. The 
little house of Mr. Flanders, which was to be our home, was the sec- 
ond house we came to after crossing the mountain from Keene. It 
had one good -sized room below, which answered pretty well for 
kitchen, dining-room, aild parlor ; also a pantry and two bedrooms ; 
and the chamber furnished space for four beds, — so that whenever ' a 
stranger or wayfaring man ' entered our gates, he was not turned 
away. We all slept soundly ; and the next morning the sun rose 
bright, and made our little home quite cheerful. Before noon a 
bright, pleasant colored boy came to our gate (or rather, our bars) 
and inquired if John Brown lived there. ' Here is where he stays,' 
was father's reply. The boy had been a slave in Virginia, and 
was sold and sent to St. Augustine, Fla. From there he ran away, 
and came to Springfield, where by his industry and good habits he 
had acquired some property. Father hired him to help carry on 
the farm, so there were ten of us in the little house; but Cyrus did 
not take more than his share of the room, and was always good- 
natured. 

" As soon as father could go around among the colored families, 
he employed Mrs. Reed, a widow, to be our housekeeper and cook ; 
for mother was very much out of health. 

" While we were living in Springfield our house was plainly fur- 
nished, but very comfortably, all excepting the parlor. Mother and 
I had often expressed a wish that the parlor might be furnished 
too, and father enccuiraged us that it should be ; but after he made 
up his mind to go to North Elba he began to economize in many 
ways. One day he called us older ones to him and said : ' I want 
to plan with you a little ; and I want you all to express your minds. 
I have a little money to spare ; and now shall we use it to furnish 
the parlor, or spend it to buy clothing for the colored people who may 
need help in North Elba another year ? ' We all said, ' Save the 
money.' He was never stingy in his family, but always provided 
liberally for us, whenever he was able to do so. Frederick Douglass 
has said in his last book, that John Brown economized so closely in 
order to carry out his plans, that we did not have a cloth on the 



I 



1850.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 101 

table at meal-times. I think our good friend is mistaken ; for I never 
sat down to a meal at my father's table without a cloth. He was 
very particular about this. Father had been planning ever since a 
boy how he could help to liberate the slaves at the South, and never 
lost an opportunity to aid in every possible way those who were es- 
caping from bondage. He saw in Mr. Smith's proposal an opening 
through which he thought he might carry out his cherished scheme. 
He knew that the colored people who might settle on those Adiron- 
dac lands were inexperienced. Most of them had lived in cities, 
and were unused to the hardships and privations they must necessa- 
rily undergo in making homes in that wild mountain region. There- 
fore, as soon as we had got fairly settled, father began to think what 
he could do to heljj the new colored settlers to begin work on their 
lands. The greater number of them were "intelligent, industrious 
people, and glad to do the best they could ; but many of them had 
been cheated badly by a land-surveyor, who took advantage of their 
ignorance, and got them to settle on lands that did not correspond 
with the deeds Gerrit Smith had given them. Some of them began 
working on low land that was hard to cultivate ; and when they 
found they had been cheated they were discouraged, and many went 
back to their city homes. Father felt deeply over the way so many 
of them had been treated, and tried to encourage and help them in 
every way he could. He spent much of his time in surveying their 
land, running out their lines, and helping them to locate on land 
actually belonging to them ; and he also employed several of the 
colored men to cut the timber off a part of the farm where he now 
lies buried. He bought a quantity of provisions for them, and some 
cloth to be made up into garments. 

" It was not long after we settled in North Elba that Mr. R. H. 
Dana, w^ith Mr. Metcalf, of Eastern Massachusetts, and Mr. Aikens, 
of Westport, came to our house one morning, and asked for some- 
thing to eat. They met father in the yard, and told him they had 
been lost in the woods, and had eaten nothing since the morning be- 
fore. Father came in, and asked me if I could get breakfast for some 
men that had been out all night, and were very hungry. ' Certainly 
I can,' said I. They lay on the grass while I made preparations to 
cook something substantial for them, but they were so hungry they 
could not wait ; so they came in and said, ' Do not wait to cook 
anything; just give us some bread and milk, for we are nearly 
starved.' I hun'ied some bread, butter, and milk on the table, 
and they ate as only hungry men can. I filled the milk-pitcher and 
bread-plate several times, until I was afraid thoy would hurt them- 
selves ; and then I persuaded them to go upstairs and sleep a few 
hours until I could get them a cooked dinner, and they did so. 



102 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1849. 

While they were resting on the beds upstairs, our excellent cook 
got dinner for them, — venison and some speckled brook-trout, with 
other things necessary to make a substantial dinner. After all was 
ready I called them, and the three came down and ate alone. They 
seemed to enjoy the dinner; but their appetites did not appear as 
keen as in the morning, when they ate the bread and milk. They 
paid us liberally for their meals, and thanked us kindly for our 
tmuble ; took their boots in their hands (for their feet were too much 
swollen to put them on), and bade us good-by. Their teamster had 
been sent for, and he took them to Mr. Osgood's, — as ]\lr. Dana 
mentions. We saw at once that they were gentlemen, despite their 
forlorn appearance; we were interested in their story, and were glad 
to entertain them." 

Mr. Dana wrote an account of this adventure, which was 
printed in the " Athmtic IVIonthly " for July, 1871, and in 
which he thus describes the country as John Brown first 
saw it in 1848 : — 

** From Keene westward we began to meet signs of frontier life, — 
log-cabins, little clearings, bad roads overshadowed by forests, moun- 
tain torrents, and the refreshing odor of balsam firs and hemlocks. In 
the afternoon we came into the Indian Pass. This is a ravine or gorge, 
formed by two close and parallel walls of nearly perpendicular cliffs, 
thirteen hundred feet in height, and almost black in their hue. Before 
I had seen the Yosemite Valley these cliff's satisfied my ideal of steep 
mountain walls. From the highest level of the Pass ffow two moun- 
tain torrents in opposite directions, — one the source of the Hudson, 
and ^o reaching the Atlantic ; and the other the source of the Au 
Sable, which runs into Lake Champlain, and at last into the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence. . . . The Adirondac Mountains wave with woods, and 
are green with bushes to their summits; torrents break down into the 
valleys on all sides ; lakes of various sizes and shapes glitter in the 
landscape, bordered by bending woods whose roots strike through 
the waters. There is none of that dreary barren grandeur that marks 
the White Mountains, although Tahawus [Mt. Marcy], the highest 
])eak, is about fifty-four hundred feet high, only some six or seven 
hundred feet less than Mt. Washington. . . . From John Brown's 
.small log-house, old White Face, the only excepti(m to the uniform 
green and brown and Idack hues of the Adirondac hills, stood plain 
in view, rising at the head of Lake Placid, its white or pale-gray 
side caiised, we were told, by a landslide; all about were the distant 
highest sunnuits." 



1849.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 103 

This was not the house that Brown built, and near 
which he now lies buried, but the smaller one that he first 
occupied. Of Brown's appearance and family arrangements 
in June, 1849 (he was then forty-nine years old), Mr. Dana 
says : — 

'* He was a tall, gaunt, dark-complexioned man, walking before his 
wagon, having his theodolite and other surveyor's instruments with 
him. He came forward and received us with kindness ; a grave, 
serious man he seemed, with a marked countenance and a natural 
dignity of manner, — that dignity which is unconscious, and comes 
from a superior habit of mind. At table he said a solemn grace. I 
observed that he called the two negroes by their surnames, with 
the prefixes of Mr. and Mrs. He introduced us to them in due form, 
— ' Mr. Dana, Mr. Jefferson,' etc. We found him veell informed on 
most subjects, especially in the natural sciences. He had boolis, and 
evidently made a diligent use of them. He had confessedly the best 
cattle and best farming utensils for miles round. He seemed to have 
an unhmited family of children, from a cheerful, nice, healthy woman 
of twenty or so [Ruth], and a full-sized, red-haired son [Owen], 
through every grade of boy and girl, to a couple that could hardly 
speak plain. Friday, June 29, we found them at breakfast in the 
patriarchal style, — Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and their large family of 
children, with the hired men and women, including three negroes, 
all at the table together. Their meal was neat, substantial, and 
wholesome." 

Concerning the house in which Mr. Dana visited her 
father, Mrs. Thompson says : — 

" It stood near the schoolhouse, on the road to Keene and Westport, 
from the grave by the great rock on father's own farm, and more than a 
mile east from that spot. The Indian Pass, mentioned by Mr. Dana, 
is a 'notch' between Mt. Marcy and Mt. Mclntyre, a few miles south 
of our cabin, while Mt. White Face was as many miles to the north. 
The Au Sable River is the stream which drains these mountains, and 
flows through North Elba in a winding course into Lake Champlain, 
at Port Kent. Westport is the town on Lake Champlain, south of 
the mouth of the Au Sable, from which travellers commonly start in 
going into the Adirondac wilderness by Keene ;' and it was through 
this town that father usually went to and from North Elba. On one 
of his trips home from S]irinc;field, in the winter, he hired a man to 
take him from Westport to Keene, but could not get any one to carry 
him over the mountain to North Elba that afternoon. Being very 



104 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN.' [1850. 

anxious to get home, he started from Keene on foot, carrying a heavy 
satchel. Before he came within several miles of home, he got so 
tired and lame that he had to sit down in the road. The snow was 
very deep, and the road but little trodden. He got up again after 
a while, went on as far as he could, and sat down once more. He 
wallied a long distance in that way, and. at last lay down with fatigue 
in the deep snow beside the path, and thought he should get chilled 
there and die. While lying so, a man passed him on foot, but did 
not notice him. Father guessed the man thought he was drunk, or 
else did not see him. He lay there and rested a while, and then 
started on again, though in great pain, and made out to reach the 
first house, Robert Scott's. (This M'as afterwards a noted tavern 
for sportsmen and travellers, and became known far and wide as 
' Scott's.' It is now kept by Mr. Scott's kinsman Mr. Ames, and 
is the nearest hotel to the ' John Brown Farm,' where father lies 
buried.) Father rested at this house for some time, and then Mr. 
Scott hitched his oxen to the sled, and brought him home to us. 
Father could scarcely get into the house, he was so tired. 

" I had in the mean time married Henry Thompson, of North Elba 
(two of whose brothers were afterwards Icilled at Harper's Ferry), 
and was living with my husband on his farm not far from where 
fatlier's grave now is. Father's lawsuits about his wool business 
had brought him back from Ohio to Troy, N. Y., nearly a hundred 
miles from North Elba ; lint hearing that the small-pox was in one 
of the mountain towns not far ft'om us, he made the long journey 
into the wilderness, and came to our house early one morning (fearing 
my husband had not been vaccinated, and so might get the sinall- 
pox). We were much surprised to see him ; and when he told us 
what brought him back, I thought was there ever such love and 
care as his ! When any of the family were sick, he did not often trust 
watchers to care for the sick one, but sat up himself, and was like a 
tender mother. At one time he sat up every night for two weeks 
wliile mother was sick, for fear he would oversleep if he went to bed, 
and then the fire would go out, and she take cold. No one outside 
of liis own family can ever know the mingled strength and tenderness 
of his character. Oh, what a loss his death seemed to us ! Yet we 
did not half know him until he was taken from us. 

" He did not lose his interest in the colored people of North Elba, 
and grieved over the sad fate of one of them, Mr. Henderson, who 
was lost in the woods in the winter of 1852, and perished with the 
cold. Mr. Henderson was an intelligent and good man, and was 
very industrious, and fatlier tliought mucli of liim. Before leaving 
for Kansas in 18.55, to help defend the Free State cause, and, if an 
opportunity offered, to strike a blow at slavery, he removed his family 



1854.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 105 

from Ohio back to the farm in North Elba. On leaving us finally to 
go to Kansas that summer, he said, ' If it is so painful for us to part 
with the hope of meeting again, how dreadful must be the feelings of 
hundreds of poor slaves who are separated for life ! ' " 

When John Brown, Jr., visited with his father at North 
Elba in 1858, he thus described the place in a letter to his 
brother : — 

" From Keene we came by a new road, laid south of the old route 
over the mountains. This new road is open for travel in the winter 
months, as it leads by Long Pond, which is itself used as a road when 
frozen over. The route is the most romantically grand and beautiful 
that I ever saw in my life. I am fully convinced that North Elba is 
the country for us to come to. Building materials of good quality 
are very cheap ; and I can purchase the wild lands having excellent 
sugar orchards on them, of from two hundred to one thousand good 
maple-trees, for about one dollar per acre. The land is easily cleared 
by ' slashing ' and burning, and by sowing on grass-seed can be con- 
verted into good pasture within a year. It is excellent for rye, 
spring- wheat, oats, potatoes, carrots, turnips, etc., and in some places 
hardy apples can be raised to advantage. I can get Mr. Dickson's 
place (forty acres, with five or six improved, or at least cleared), 
with a good log-house, a frame barn, 20 X 30 feet, for $150." 

John Brown himself often declared his fondness for this 
region, and it was by his express request that he was buried 
on the hill-side, in view of Tahawus and White Face. In 
June, 1854, while living in Ohio, he thus wrote to his son 
John : — 

" My o^vn conviction, after again visiting Essex County (as I did 
week before last), is that no place (of which I know) oflers so many 
inducements to me, or any of my family, as that section ; and I would 
wish when you make a move that you go in that direction. I will 
give my reasons at length when I have a little more time. Henry 
and family are well, and appear satisfied that North Elba is about 
the place after all. I never saw it look half so inviting before." 

In an earlier letter he thus writes : — 

North Elba, N. Y., Dec. 15, 1852. 
Dear son John, — I got here last night, and found all very com- 
fortable and well, except Henry, who is troubled with a lame back. 



106 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [ISoO. 

something like rheumatism I presume. The weather has been very 
mild so far, and things appear to be progressing among our old 
neiglibors ; so that I feel as much as ever disj)osed to regard this as 
my home, and I can thinlt of no objection to your coming here to live 
when you can sell out well. A middling good saw-mill is now run- 
ning a few rods down the river ^ from the large pine log we used to 
cross on, when we went to help Henry take care of his oats. The 
more I reflect on all the consequences likely to follow, the more I am 
disposed to encourage you to come here ; and I take into the account 
as well as I can the present and future welfare of yourself and 
family, and prospects of usefulness. Our trial at Boston is to come 
on by agreement on the 6th January. I shall write Mr. Pei-kius to 
send you money for expenses, so that you can get, on to Boston by 
the 3d January. We shall want to look the papers over, and talk 
the business over beforehand. Ruth intends occupying tlie balance 
of the sheet. My best wishes for you all. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

The hardships of existence in a new country like North 
Elba fall heaviest on the women. Mrs. Brown had been an 
invalid before leaving Springfield, and she was long out of 
health in this forest home. To encourage her, as he fre- 
quently did, Brown had recourse to letters of sympathy 
and exhortation, mingled with prosaic details of the econ- 
omy they must practise at North Elba. One or two of 
these letters will here be given, together with letters to 
Ruth and his other children. 



John Broivn to his Wife. 

Springfield, Mass., Nov. 28, 1850. 
Dear Wife, — ... Since leaving home I have thought that under 
all the circumstances of doubt attending the time of our removal, and 
the possibility that we may not remove at all, I had perhaps en- 
couraged the boys to feed out the potatoes too freely. ... I want 
to have them very careful to have no hay or straw wasted, but I 
would have them use enough straw for bedding the cattle to keep 
them from lying in the mire. I heard from Ohio a few days since ; 
all were then well. It now seems that the Fugitive Slave Law was 
to be the means of making more Abolitionists than all the lectures 

1 A branch qf the Au Sable. 



1851.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 107 

we have had fur years. It really looks as if God bad his hand on 
this wickedness also. I of course keep encouraging uiy colored 
friends to " trust in God, and keep their powder dry." I did so 
to-day, at Thanksgiving meethig, publicly. . . . While here, and at 
almost all places where I stop, 1 am treated with all kindness and 
attention ; but it does not make home. I feel kinely and restless, no 
matter how neat and comfortable my room and bed, nor how richly 
loaded may be the table; they have few charms for me, away from 
home. I can look back to our log-cabin at the centre of Eichfield, 
with a supper of porridge and johnny-cake, as a place of far more 
interest to me than the " Massasoit" ^ of Springfield. But "there 's 
mercy in every place." 

Jan. 17, 1851. 
... I wrote Owen last week that if he hud not the means on hand 
to buy a little sugar, to write Mr. Cutting, ot Westport, to send out 
some. I conclude you have got your belt before this. I could not 
manage to send the slates for the boys, as I intended, so they must 
be provided for some t)ther way. ... Say to the little girls that I 
will run home the first chance I get ; but I want to have them learn 
to be a little more still. May God in his infinite mercy bless and 
keep you all is the unceasing prayer of 

Your atfectiuuate husband, 

John Bkown. 

To Henry Thompson. 

North Hudson, N. Y., March 15, 1851. 
I have drawn an order on you, payable in board of Mail-carrier, 
horse-feed, or oats, in favor of Mr. Judd for $7.09, which you will 
oblige me by paying in oats at forty cents per bushel, or in board as 
above, whichever he may choose. When you can sell my stuflp please 
pay your fiither $2.00 for me. I also wish you to send <>u of my shin- 
gles that Hiram Brown carried out, two thousand to Alva Holt, as 
we settled about the oats on conditicm of my sending him two thou- 
sand. I wish you to open an account of debt and credit with me from 
this time on, as I shall have a good many errands to trouble you 
with. I wish you would notify Mr. Flanders by letter at once (if 
Nash calls on you for the $3.00) to go ahead with the suit. Mr. 
Kellogg told me he thought the Trustees would settle with me, were 
he to write to them. We are getting along very well ; the boys are 
still ahead, and Jack is with us. Mr. Blood talked of taking the 
shingles before I sold the two thousand to Holt, and said he would 

1 A noted iun. 



108 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1852. 

go and look at them, aud give me $1.50 per thousand for them if he 
liked them. I wish to do the handsome thing by him about it. 
Would be glad to have you see him about it. My love unceasing 
to Ruth. 

Affectionately yours, 

John Brown, 

TiioY, N. Y., Oct, 6, 1851. 

Dear Children, — As I am still detained at this place, I improve 
a leisure moment to write you, as the only means of communicating 
with a part of my family in whose present and future interests I have 
an inexpressible concern. Words and actions are but feeble means 
of conveying an idea of what I always feel whenever my absent chil- 
dren come into mind ; so I will not enlarge on that head. . , , 

I wish you to say to Mr. Epps ^ that if Mr. Hall does not soon 
take care of the boards that are fallen down about the house he 
built, I wish he and Mr. Dickson would go and take them away, 
as I paid for them, and am the rightful owner of them. I wish to 
have them confine themselves entirely to those of the roof and gable- 
ends. I mean to let Hall have them if he will occupy the building, 
or have any one do it on his account ; but I do not mean to have him 
let them lie year after year and rot, and do no one any good. I wish 
this to be attended to before the snow covers them up again. 

Elizabethtown, Feb. 6, 1852. 

Dear Henry, — Mr. Judd is wanting to buy a large quantity of 
oats, for which he is now paying one cent per pound, cash. He also 
wants to buy a supply for his teams that carry the mail to Saranac, 
for the next season. He says oats that have rye mixed with them 
will be worth as much by the pound for his own teams as those 
which have none. Thinking it miglit be of advantage to you to 
know of this, and perhaps to see him, I concluded to send you a line 

at any rate. 

Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

To his Wife. 

Utica, N, Y., Dec. 27, 1852. 

... I seem to he pretty much over the effects of the ague, except 
as to my sight, which is some impaired, and which will not probably 
ever become much better. I made a short visit to North Elba, and 
left them all well and very comfortable, one week ago to-day. . . . 
The colored families appear to be doing well, and to feel encouraged. 

1 One of Lis colored neighbors at North Elba. 



J 



1853.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 109 

They all send much love to you. They have constant preaching on 
the Sabbath ; and intelligence, morality, and religion appear to be 
all on the advance. Our old neighbors appear to wish us back. I 
can give no particular instructions to the boys, except to take the 
best care of everything, — not forgetting their own present and eter- 
nal good. If any young calves come that are nice ones, I want them 
to be well looked after, and if any very mean ones, I would have them 
killed at once. I am much pleased to get such a good account from 
the boys, and from Anne and Sarah. 

To Henry and Ruth Thompson. 

Akron, April 6, 1853. 

I have thought a good deal how to arrange as well as possible in 
regard to a home, should I live to go back to North Elba. I am a 
good deal at a loss how to divide the land so as to accommodate both 
families in the best way ; and I wish to call your attention to that 
matter, as you may perhaps be able to think of some way that will 
exactly suit all hands. I would be glad if Henry will send me his 
views freely in regard to the following questions, namely : Are you 
fond of the business or care of a sawmill "f Are there any springs on 
that part of the let lying east of the river, so situated as to accommo- 
date a family on that side ; or do you think there is a prospect of 
getting a good well where the strip is of some width, and the face 
such as would be convenient to build on ? Would you divide the 
land by the river, or by a line running east and west "? Will it be 
any damage to you if you defer building your house until we can hit 
on some plan of dividing the land, or at least for another year? If I 
was sure of going back next spring I should want to get some logs 
peeled for a house, as I expect to be quite satisfied with a log-house 
for the rest of my days. Perhaps by looking over the land a little 
with a view to these things, you can devise a plan that will suit well. 
I do not mean to be hard to please ; but such is the situation of the 
lot, and so limited are my means, that I am quite at a loss. Will it 
be convenient to have the ground that is gone over on the east side 
of the river got into grass this season? ... I can tliink of but little 
to write that will be worth reading. Wishing you all present and 
future good, I remain, 

Your aflfectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, .June 30, 1853. 

Dear Children, — Your very welcome letters were received last 
night. In regard to a house, I did not prefer a log one, only in view 



110 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1854. 

of the expense ; and I would wish Henry to act according to his own 
best judgment in regard to it. If he builds a better house than I can 
pay for, we must so divide the hind as to have him keep it. I would 
like to have a house to go into next spring, if it can be brought about 
comfortably. I ought to have expressed it more distinctly in better 
season, but forgot to do so. We are in comfortable health, so far as 
I know, except father, Jason, and Ellen, all of whom have had a run 
of ague. Father, when I saw him last, was very feeble ; and I fear 
that in consequence of his great age he will never get strong again. 
It is some days since I went to see him. We are not through sheep- 
shearing or hoeing, and our grass is needing to be cut now. We have 
lately had very dry weather. ... I am much rejoiced at the news 
of a religious kind in Ruth's letter ; and would be still more rejoiced 
to learn that all the sects who bear the Christian name would have 
no more to do with that mother of all abominations, — man-stealing. 
I hope, unfit and unworthy as I am, to be allowed a membership in 
your little church before long ; and I pray God to claim it as his own, 
and that he will most abundantly bless all in your place who love him 
in truth. " If any man love not his brother whom he huth seen, how 
can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " I feel but little force 
about me for wiiting or any kind of business, but will try to write 
you more before long. Our State fair commences at Dayton the 2Uth 
of September, and will be held open four days. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, April 14, 1854. 

Dear Children, — I did not get Ruth's letter, dated on the 1st 
instant, until the 12th, but was very glad to hear from you then, and 
to learn that you fouiid things as well as you did. In fact, God 
never leaves us A\'ithout the most abundant cause for gratitude ; and 
let us try and have it in habitual exercise. We have had some com- 
plaints among several of us of late, but none of us have been very 
unwell. We had a most comfortable settlement of last year's busi- 
ness with Mr. Perkins, and division of stock. I had nine of the 
company calves, and he sold me four of the old for one hundred dol- 
lars, which I used to have. I have two young bull calves, — one a 
full blood, — which I think among the best I ever saw. 

Akron, Nov. 2, 1854. 

Dear Children, — T feel still pretty much determined to go back 
to North Elba; but expect Owen and Frederick will set out for Kan- 
sas on Monday next, with cattle belonging to John, Jason, and them- 



1855.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. Ill 

selves, intending to winter somewhere in Illinois. I expect to set 
out for Albany to-morrow, and for Connecticut after the 8th. I mean 
to go and see you before I return, if my money for expenses will hold 
out. Money is extremely scarce, and I have been some disappointed, 
so that I do not now know as I shall be able to go and see you at 
this time. Nothing but the want of means will prevent me, if life 
and health are continued. Gerrit Smith wishes me to go back to 
North Elba ; from Douglass and Dr. McCune Smith I have not yet 
heard. I shipped you a cask of pork containing 347 pounds clear 
pork, on the I9th, directed to Henry Thompson, North Elba, Essex 
Co., N. Y., care C B. Hatch & Son, Westport. We are all in 
usual health. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

This letter was preliminary to Brown's first expedition to 
Kansas in 1855, in defence of the free settlers there, par- 
ticularly his own sons. 

While he was preparing for the further defence of Kansas 
in 1857-58, and for his attack on slavery elsewhere, he 
did not by any means forget or neglect the family at :Nrorth 
Elba, but busied himself in securing for them an addition 
to the two farms in the wilderness on which his wife and 
married daughter, Mrs. Thompson, were living. Several of 
his Massachusetts friends, chief among whom were Mr. 
George L. Stearns and Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, raised a 
subscription of one thousand dollars to purchase one hun- 
di-ed and sixty acres of land for division in equal portions 
between these farms. Mr. Stearns contributed $260 to this 
fund, and Mr. Lawrence $310, — these two gentlemen hav- 
ing made up the sum by which the original subscription fell 
short of one thousand dollars. The connection of Mr. Law- 
rence with this transaction, and his personal acquaintance 
■with Brown in 1857,^ were afterwards held to imply that he 

1 At this time neither Gerrit Smith nor Mr. Stearns nor myself had any 
knowledge of Brown's scheme for a campaign in Virginia. The subscrip- 
tion ])aper was as follows : — 

" The family of Captain Jolin BroAvn, of Ossawatoniie, have no means of 
support, owing to the oppression to which he has been subjected in Kansas 
Territory. It is pioposed to put them (his wife and five children) in pos- 
session of the means of supporting tliemselves, so far as is possible for per- 
sons in their situation. The undersigned, therefore, will pay the following 



112 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

had some knowledge of Brown's Virginia plans, which was 
not the case. The subscription thus raised was expended 
in completing the purchase of the tract in question, origi- 
nally sold by Gerrit Smith to the brothers of Henry Thomp- 
son (Brown's son-in-law), but which had not been wholly 
paid for. In August, 1857, as the agent of Messrs. Stearns 
and Lawrence, I visited North Elba, examined the land, paid 
the Thompsons their stipulated price for improvements, and 
to Mr. Smith the remainder of the purchase money, took 
the necessary deeds, and transferred the property to Mrs. 
Brown and Mrs. Thompson, according to the terms ari'auged 
by Captain Brown in the preceding spring. I have before 
me as I write the pencil memorandum, in Gerrit Smith's 

sums, provided one thousand dollars should be raised. With this sum a 
small farm can now be purcliased in the neighborhood of their late resi- 
dence in Essex County, New York. 

Maj', '57. Paid. William R. Lawrence, Yifty dollars. 

Ione hundred dollars. 
^235 more. 
3335 
] Fifty dollars. 
Paid. George L. Stearns, l f^ more 

J $285 

Paid. John E. Lodge, twenty-five dollars. 

Paid. J. Carter Brown [by A. A. L.], one hundred dollars. 

Paid. J. M. S. Williams, fifty dollars. 

Paid. John Bertram [by M. S. W.], seventy-five dollars. 

Paid. W. D. Pickman.'fiftv dollars. 

Paid. R. P. Waters [by \V. D. P.], ten dollars. 

Paid. S. E. Peabody, ten dollars. 

Paid. John H. Silsbee, ten dollars. 

Paid. B. Sil.sbee, five dollars. 

Paid. Cash, ten dollars. 

Paid. Wendell Phillips, twenty-five dollars. 

Paid. W. J. Rotch, ten dollars. 

Paid. George L. Stearns, two hundred and thirty-five dollars. 

Paid. A. A. Lawrence, two hundred and thirty-five dollars. 
One thousand dollars in aU. July 27, 1857. 

Boston, Nov. 5, 1857. John Bertram's subscription being $75, instead 
of $25, as I supposed, I have returned to Amos A. Lawrence twenty-five 
dollars, making his whole subscription, $310 ; my subscription, $260 ; all 
others, $430, — total, $1000. 

(Signed) George L. Steakns," 



I 



1857.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACS. 113 

«> 

familiar handwriting, showing this transaction. Here it 
is : — 

DraftofF. B. S flOOO 

Due Thompsons $574 

Due me on note 111.66 

" " on land 288.89 974.55 

125.45 

This sum ($25.45) I handed to Mrs. Brown at North Elba, 
Aug. 13, 1857. 

A few days later I reported to Mr. Stearns as follows : — 

" I wi'ote you from Buffalo, I think, telling you of the settling of 
the business of Captain Brown witli Mr. Smith ; since when I have 
been in North Elba, and passed a night under his roof. There I 
found Mrs. Brown, a tall, large woman, fit to be the mother of heroes, 
as she is. Her family are her two sons and three daughters, one of 
them a child of three years. One of the sons has been in Kansas ; 
the other vA'as to go with his father this summer, but I think his mar- 
riage, which took place in April, may have prevented it. Owen is 
now with his father, and both, I suppose, are in Kansas, for on the 
17th of July they were beyond Iowa City with their teams. I shall 
have much to teU you about this visit. The subscription could not 
have been better bestowed, and the small balance, which I paid Mrs. 
Brown, came very opportunely." 

I had previously written to Brown, August 14, from Au 
Sable Forks, to which he replied from Tabor, in Iowa, Aug. 
27, 1857, as follows : — 

My dear Friend, — Your most welcome letter of the 14th inst., 
from Au Sable Forks, is received. I cannot express the gratitude I 
feel to all the kind friends who contributed towards paying for the 
place at North Elba, after I had bought it, as I am thereby relieved 
from a very great embarrassment both with Mr. Smith and the young 
Thompsons, and also comforted with the feeling that my noble-hearted 
wife and daughters will not be driven either to beg or become a bur- 
den to my poor boys, who have nothing but their hands to begin with. 
I am under special obligation to you for going to look after them and 
cheer them in their homely condition. May God reward you all a 
thousandfold! No language I have can express the satishiction it 
affords me to feel that I have friends who will take the trouble to look 
after them and know the real condition of my family, while I am " far 
away," perhaps never to return. I am still waiting here for company, 

8 



114 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

additional teams, and means of paying expenses, or to know that I can 
make a diversion in favor of our friends, in case they are involved 
again in trouble. Colonel Forbes has come on and has a small 
school at Tabor. I wrote you some days ago, giving a few particu- 
lars in regard to our movements ; and I intend writing my friend 
Stearns, as soon as I have anything to tell him that is wortli a 
stamp. Please say to him, that, provided I do not get into such a 
speculation as shall swallow up all the property I have been furnislicd 
with, I intend to keep it all safe, so that he may be remunerated in 
the end ; but that I am wholly in the dark about it as yet, and that I 
canncjt flatter him much now. Will direct where to write me when 
I know how to do so. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

N. H. 

" N. H." stands for " Nelson Hawkins," one of the names 
by which Brown was known to his friends when in an 
enemy's country. Soon afterwards he did write to Mr. 
Stearns : "I have learned with gratitude what has been done 
to render my wife and children more comfortable. May 
God himself be the everlasting portion of all the contri- 
butors ! This generous act has lifted a heavy load from 
my heart." 

John Brown had returned to North Elba in April, 1857, 
after two years' absence ; and it was on this visit that he 
carried with him the old tombstone of his grandfather, Cap. 
tain John Brown, the Kevolutionary soldier, from the burial 
place of his family in Canton, Conn. He caused the name 
of his son Frederick, who fell in Kansas, to be carved on 
this stone, with the date of his death, and placed it where 
he desired his own grave to be, — beside a huge rock on the 
hillside where his house stands, — giving directions that his 
own name and the date of his death should be inscribed there 
too, when he should fall, as he expected, in the conflict with 
slavery. That stone now marks his grave, and tells a story 
which more costly monuments and longer inscriptions could 
not so well declare. Beside him are buried, after a strange 
separation of many years, the bones of his son Watson, 
over which funeral services were performed on this hillside 
in October, 1882, in the presence of his mother, his wife, 
his two eldest brothers, and his sister Ruth. The wander- 



1882.] PIONEER LIFE IN THE ADIEONDACS. 115 

ings of the father and the son have ceased, and they rest 
together in this mountain-home of their affections, — these 
pioneers of Liberty, their long march ended at last.-^ 

1 This pioneer iustinct of the family has led the sons of John Brown into 
many a new country, either for exploration or fur settlement. All of them 
at one time or another tried their fortune in Kansas ; the youngest surviv- 
ing sou, after the Civil War was decided, journeyed with his mother and 
sisters across the great plains to California, where he is a sheep-farmer on 
the ranges of Humboldt County. Others of the family have since gone to 
Southern California ; while the two eldest sous established themselves 
among the first on oue of the charming vineyard islands of Lake Erie. 
The oldest son, in 1875, while exploring the region about the Black Hills, 
encountered Indians on the journey, who made some threats of attacking 
"men with hats" if the United States should try to remove them from 
their hunting-grounds as had been proposed ; but they were friendly to the 
exploring party, and being told that tliis was the sou of Captain Brown, 
of Harper's Ferry, of whom, though wild Indians, they had heard the story, 
they testified much respect for the son of such a brave. The whole Brown 
family now live widely se[)arated, and all are far away from their father's 
grave among the Adirondac Mountains. Ruth, the oldest daughter, with 
her husband Henry Thompson, is living with her children and grand- 
children at Pasadena, Cah ; Anne has long been married, and has a fam- 
ily of children ; Salmon has seven or eight children ; John, the eldest 
brother, has two children, — so that the grandchildren of Cai>tain Brown 
already number about twenty. There is no danger of that family becoming 
extinct, even though it lost so many members in the war with slavery. 
Nor are the Browns likely to become enervated by too much contact with 
luxury and the life of cities, for they follow the romantic impulse of their 
father, and of Daniel Boone, and keep on the advancing edge of civilization, 
— whereof they are pioneers, in more senses than one. 



116 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 



CHAPTER V. 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 

ALL this unwearied industry of John Brown in pioneer 
life, in tlie pursuit of wealth, in the establishment 
of his children, in the formation of acquaintance, and the 
maintenance of his family, was but preparatory, in his 
thought and in fact, to the fore-ordained and chosen task of 
his life, — the overthrow of American slavery. During the 
English war of 1812 he began to reflect, he says, " on the 
wretched, hopeless condition of fatherless and motherless 
slave children, sometimes raising the question, ' Is God their 
Father ? ' "When this was answered in the Old Testament 
way, the boy in his teens declared and swore ' eternal war 
with slavery.' " He did not hasten forward towards the 
achievement of what he had undertaken, until the fulness 
of time had come, and he had furnished himself with such 
military and general knowledge as he deemed requisite. 
He kept it steadily before him for forty years, educated 
himself and his children for it, and made it as much a part 
of his household discipline as were his prayers at morning 
and evening. Emerson, indeed, in his speech at Salem in 
1859, a month before Brown's death, fixes a much earlier 
date as the beginning of his enterprise against slavery in 
Virginia. "It was not a piece of spite or revenge, — a plot 
of two years or of twenty years, — but the keeping of an 
oath made to heaven and earth forty-seven years before. 
Forty-seven years at least, — though I incline to accept his 
own account of the matter at Charlestown, which makes 
the date a little older, when he said, * This was all settled 
millions of years before the world was made.' " Mrs. Brown 
told me in 1860 that she had known his design ijnd been 
pledged to aid it for more than twenty years ; and John 
Brown himself had said in 1857, early in my acquaintance 



i 



1858.J PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 117 

with him, " I always told her that when the time came to 
fight against slavery, that conflict would be the signal for 
our separation. She made up her mind to have me go long 
before this ; and when I did go, she got ready bandages and 
medicine for the wounded." 

" For twenty years," he told Richard Hinton in 1858, " I 
have never made any business arrangement which would 
prevent me at any time answering the call of the Lord. I 
have kept my affairs in such condition that in two weeks 
I could wind them up and be ready to obey that call ; per- 
mitting nothing to stand in the way of duty, — neither wife, 
children, nor worldly goods. Whenever the time should 
come, I was ready ; that hour is very near at hand, and all 
who are willing to act should be ready." 

In 1820, at the time of the Missouri Compromise, when 
his hostility to slavery took definite shape ; in 1837, when he 
formed his plans for attacking slavery by force ; and even 
in 1858, when he had organized an armed band to carry them 
out, — his scheme would have seemed mere madness to most 
persons. But Brown had the spirit of his ancestors, the Pil- 
grim Fathers ; he entered upon his perilous undertaking with 
deliberate resolution, after considering what was to be said for 
and against it, as did the Pilgrims before they set forth from 
Holland to colonize America. William Bradford, their brav- 
est leader and their historian, has recorded the arguments 
for attempting the voyage to America in words which will 
apply, with very little change, to the adventure undertaken 
two centuries and a half later by Peter Brown's stalwart 
descendant, the last of the Puritans. 

" It was answered," says Bradford in his History, " that all great 
and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and 
must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It 
was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate ; the difficuUies 
were many, but not invincible. For though there were manie of them 
likely, yet they were not certain. It might be sundrie of the things 
feared might never befall; others, by provident care and the use of 
good means, might in a great measure be prevented ; and all of them, 
through the help of God, bi/ fortitude and patience, might either be borne 
or overcome. True it was that such attempts were not to be made and 
undertaken without good ground and reason ; not rashly or lightly as 



118 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1820. 

many have done for curiosity or hope of gaine, etc. But their condi- 
tion was not ordinarie; their ends were good and honourable; their 
calling lawfull and urgente; aud therefore they might expecte the 
blessing of God iu their proceeding. Yea, though thei/ should loose 
their lives in this action, yet might they have comforte iu the same, 
aud endeavors would be honourable." 

The world now sees how honorable the endeavors of Brad- 
ford, Standish, and John Brown. were, and what momentous 
results have followed. " Christ died on the tree," said Car- 
lyle to Emerson at Craigenputtock iu August, 1833 : " that 
built Dunscone kirk yonder ; that brought you and me to- 
gether." The sequence of events iu John Brown's case was 
the same, and far more important, — since from the cruci- 
fixion at Jerusalem a light sprang forth that was reflected 
back without obstruction from the ugly gallows of Virginia. 
John Brown took up his cross and followed his Lord ; aud 
it was enough for this servant that he was as his Master. 

Even from the statesman's point of view the enterprise 
was glorious, as the event has proved. John Quincy Adams 
was a statesman sufficiently prudent ; yet when the Mis- 
souri Compromise was under fierce debate in Congress (Mr. 
Adams being then Secretary of State, and Mr.- Calhoun 
Secretary of War, to James Monroe) he made this entry in 
his journal : — 

" Feb. 24, 1820. I had some conversation with Calhoun on the 
slave-questiou pending in Congress. He said he did not think it 
would produce a dissolution of the Union, but if it should, the South 
would be compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with 
Great Britain. I said that would be returning to the colonial state. 
He said, ' Yes, pretty much ; but it would be forced upon them.' . . . 
I pressed the conversation no further. But if the dissolution of the 
Union should result from the slave-question, it is as obvious as any- 
thing that can be foreseen of futurity, that it must shortly afterwards 
be followed by the universal emanciimtion of the slaves ; . . . the 
destructive progress <>? emancipation, wliich, like all great religious 
and political reformations, is terrible in its means, though happy and 
glorious in its end. Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the 
North American Union, and it is a contemplation worthy of the most 
exalted soul whether its total abolition is or is not practicable ; if 
practicable, by what means it may be effected, and if a choice of 



1859.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 119 

means be within the scope of the object, what means would accomplish 
it at the smallest cost of human sufferance f A dissolution, at least 
tonporary, of the Union as now constituted woidd be necessary ; and 
the dissolution must be upon a j^oint involving the question of slav- 
ery, and no other. The Union might then be reorganized on the 
fundamental principle of emancipation. This object is vast in its 
compass, awful in its prospects, sublime and beautiful in its issue. 
A life devoted to it would be nobly sjjeut or sacrificed." 

Such a life was that of John Brown. He entered upon it 
when as a boy, " during the war with England," seven years 
before this colloquy of Adams with Calhoun, he saw his 
little black playmate starved and beaten, and with boyish 
ardor " swore eternal war with slavery." He ended it upon 
the gallows in Virginia, and men said he " died as a fool 
dieth." But the method that he devised for emancipation 
was that which, within live years from his death, the nation 
adopted and carried to a successful issue. It Avas the method 
of force ; and it proceeded gradually, as Brown had foreseen 
that it must, from State to State, and without overthrowing 
the general government. There was, however, what Adams 
had predicted, — a temporary dissolution of the Union, fol- 
lowed by " amendment and repeal," as Brown desired ; and 
then by that which Adams and Brown both had longed for, — 
a reorganization of the Union " on the fundamental question 
of emancipation." Thus, again, in human history, as so many 
times before, did the divine paradox reassert itself, and the 
stone which the builders rejected became the head of the 
corner. Beside the Potomac, where the founder of our Re- 
public lived and died, crowned with honors, it was decreed 
that the restorer of the Republic should also die by the 
hangman's hand. The work that Washington and Jeffer- 
son left unfinished, Brown came to complete ; and Lincoln 
with his proclamations. Grant and Sherman with their 
armies, did little more than follow in the path that Brown 
had pointed out. " Of all the men who were said to be my 
contemporaries," w^rote a Concord poet, '' it seemed to me 
that John Brown was the only one wdio had not died. I 
meet him at every turn. He is more alive than ever he was ; 
he is no longer working in secret ; he works in public, and 
in the clearest light that shines on this land." 



120 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1874. 

This was Thoreau's verdict in 1860, before the great Civil 
War had shown the world what Brown's true place was among 
the successful champions of humanity. Fifteen years after 
his death, when the American Eepublic had regained the 
universal freedom of men, for which Jefferson formulated 
its charter in 1776, and wlien the French Republic had re- 
called Victor Hugo from his long and honorable exile, that 
commanding genius of his century thus addressed the widow 
of John Brown : ^ — 

Madam, — Several years have passed away since your noble hus- 
band completed the sacrifice of a life consecrated to the most generous 
of all aims. The gallows on which he suffered called forth a cry of 
universal indignation, which was the signal for securing the emanci- 
pation of a race till then disinherited. Honor be to him, and to 
his worthy sons who were associated with him in his endeavors ! 
To the blessing witli which the present age crowns their memory 
shall be added that of future generations. These thoughts. Madam, 

^ This letter, written by Hugo, was signed also by the other members of 
a French committee which presented to Mrs. Brown in 1874 a gold medal 
in honor of her husband. Their names were Louis Blanc, Victor Schcelcher, 
Patrice Larroipie, Eugene Pelletan, Melvil-Bloncourt, Capron, Ch. L. Chas- 
sin, Etienne Arago, Laureut-Pichat, and L. Gornes. The medal itself Avas 
njodelled by Wurder, of Brussels, bearing on one side a bearded head of 
Brown, and on the reverse this inscription : '' To the memory of John 
Blown, judicially murdered at Charlestown, in Virginia, on the 2d of De- 
cember, 1859 ; and in commemoration also of his sons and comrades who, 
with him, became the victims of their devotion to the cause of negro eman- 
cipation." This medal (weighing nearly five ounces) was sent to Mrs. 
Brown in California by her son John, who received it from William Lloyd 
Garrison, to whom the French committee gave a bronze copy of the medal, 
with the following letter : — 

Paris, Oct. 20, 1874. 
Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 

S,K, — We have received, through the hands of M. Victor Schcelcher, the letter by 
which the son of Jolin Brown informs you that tlie family will receive, with all due 
appreciation, the gold medal struck in memorj- of the glorious death of his father. We 
beg yon, therefore, to he kind enough, in accordance with your generous offer, to charge 
yourself with its delivery to the Brown family, together with the letter to Mrs. Brown 
accompanying it. In thanking you for your kind inten-ention, we beg you to accept 
the assurance of our high esteem ; and also a copy of the medal, in bronze, which is the 
work (without remuneration) of a sympathizing artist. We have sent to the agency of 
the house of Lebeau, who represent the line of steamers from Liver])ool to Boston, the 
box containing the gold medal addressed to the widow of John Brown, —expenses pre- 
paid. 

The Delegate Capkon. 

Patrice Larroque, Secretary. 



1839. 



PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 121 



must assuredly tend greatly to alleviate your great sorrow. But you 
have sought a higher cousolation for your grief, iu the reflection that 
beyond the imperfect justice of man sits enthroned that Supreme 
Justice which will leave no good action unrewarded and no crime 
impunished. We hope, also, that you may derive some comfort from 
this expression of our sympathy, as citizens of the French Republic, 
which would have reached you earlier but for the prolonged and cruel 
sufferings through which our unfortunate country has been forced to 
pass. 

Though Brown drew this applause from the French 
Kepublicans for his generous martyrdom, nothing could be 
further from the Red Republican temper and from French 
impiety than were his temper and devout purpose. He was 
a Saxon follower of the French Calvin and the Mauritanian 
Augustine, as they were followers of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
John Brown was a Bible-worshipper, if ever any man was. 
He read and meditated on the Bible constantly ; in his will 
he bequeathed a Bible to each of his children and grand- 
children ; and he wrote to his family a few days before his 
execution, " I beseech you every one to make the Bible your 
daily and nightly study." Such was the man — of the best 
New England blood, of the stock of the Plymouth Pilgrims, 
and bred up like them " in the nurture and admonition of 
the Lord " — who was selected by God, and knew himself to 
be so chosen, to overthrow the bulwark of oppression in 
America. His prayers and meditations from childhood had 
been leading him towards this consecration of himself to a 
great work, and he had no dearer purpose in life than to 
fulfil the mission. He seems to have declared a definite 
plan of attacking slavery in one of its strongholds, by force, 
as early as 1839 ; and it was to obtain money for this enter- 
prise that he engaged in land-speculations and wool-mer- 
chandise for the next ten or twelve years. His ventures 
failed ; it was not destined that he should grow rich and be 
able to help the poor from his abundance ; and he accepted 
the narrow path of poverty. While tending his flocks in 
Ohio, with his sons and daughters about him, he first com- 
municated to them his purpose of attacking slavery in arms. 
From that time forward, a period of more than twenty years, 
he devoted himself, not exclusively, but mainly, to the un- 



122 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [18;VJ. 

dertaking iu which he sacrificed his life. He looked on his 
mercautile connections, on his acquaintance at home and his 
travels abroad, as means to this great end ; he came back 
from Europe poor, but more in love than ever with Amer- 
ican democracy, and more resolved that American slavery 
should be destroyed. In his campaign against it he did not 
contemplate insurrection, but partisan warfare, — at first on a 
small scale, then more extensive ; yet he did not shrink from 
the extreme consequences of his theory. A man of peace 
for more than fifty years of his life, he nevertheless under- 
stood that war had its uses, and that there were worse evils 
than battles for a great principle. He more than once said 
to me, and doubtless to others, " I believe in the Golden 
E,ule and the Declaration of Independence. I think they 
both mean the same thing ; and it is better that a whole 
generation should pass off the face of the earth, — men, 
women, and children, — by a violent death, than that one 
jot of either should fail m this country. I mean exactly so, 
sir." He also told me that " he had much considered the 
matter, and had about concluded that forcible separation of 
the connection between master and slave was necessary to 
fit the blacks for self-government." First a soldier, then a 
citizen, was his plan with the liberated slaves. " When they 
stand like men, the nation will respect them," he said ; " it 
is necessary to teach them this." He looked forward, no 
doubt, to years of conflict, in which the blacks, as in the later 
years of the Civil War, should be' formed into regiments 
and brigades and be drilled in the whole art of war, — like 
the black soldiers of Toussaint L'Ouverture and Dessalines, 
in Hayti. But in his more inspired moments he foresaw a 
speedier end to the combat which he began. Once he said, 
" A few men in the right, and knowing they are right, can 
overturn a mighty king. Fifty men, twenty men, in the 
Alleghanies, could break slavery to pieces in two years." 

The actual attempt of Brown in Virginia to break in 
pieces this national idol of slavery was judged as mad- 
ness by his countrymen at the moment, and even now, as 
we look back on it, seems devoid of the elements which 
would make success possible. But with God all things are 
possible, — and success followed the noble madness of his 



1851.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 123 

assault. That brief campaign, with its immediate frustra- 
tion and its ultimate and speedy triumph, is now seen to 
have been au omen of the divine purpose. It has already 
become a part of the world's history and literature, — a new 
chapter added to the record of heroism and self-devotion, a 
new incident in the long romance which has been for three 
hundred years the history of Virginia. It was little to the 
honor of Virginia then ; but so heavy has been the penalty 
since visited on that State and her people, that we may omit 
all censure upon what was done. God has judged between 
them and John Brown ; and His judgment, as always, will be 
found not only just but merciful, since it has removed from 
a brave and generous people the curse of human slavery. It 
was for this result, and this alone, that Brown plotted and 
fought, prayed and died ; and even before his death he saw 
that his prayers woi:ld be answered. 

Although John Brown would have justified a slave insur- 
rection, or indeed almost any means of destroying slavery, 
he did not seek to incite general insurrection among the 
Southern slaves. The venture in which he lost his life was 
not an insurrection in any sense of the word, but an invasion 
or foray, similar in its character to that which Garibaldi was 
to make six months later in Sicily for the overthrow of the 
infamous Bourbon tj^ranny there. The Italian hero suc- 
ceeded, and became dictator of the island he had conquered; 
the American hero failed for the moment, and was ]3ut to 
death. But his soul went marching on ; and millions of his 
countrymen followed in his footsteps two years later, to 
complete the campaign in which Brown had led the forlorn 
hope. As usual, the forlorn hope was sacrificed, but by their 
death the final victory was won. 

While this servant and prophet of God was waiting for 
the accepted time, he continued those efforts in behalf of 
fugitive slaves which began so early. He was specially ac- 
tive in this after the enactment of Senator Mason's Fugitive 
Slave Bill in 1850, — supported as it was by Webster, of 
Massachusetts, and Clay, of Kentucky. Poor black men were 
then hunted down at the instigation of rich white men, even 
in Boston ; and the courts of Massachusetts were disgraced 
by the chains of Virginian slavery. Early in 1851, while 



124 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1851. 

Brown was nominally a resident of the Adirondac woods, 
he was at his old home in Springfield, and there formed an 
organization among the colored people, many of whom were 
refugees, to resist the capture of any fugitive slave, no mat- 
ter by what authority. The letter of instructions given by 
Brown at that time to his Springfield " Gileadites," as he 
called them, deserves to be cited here, as an authentic docu- 
ment throwing light on the character and purposes of 
l>rown at that time, nearly nine years before his campaign 
in Virginia. It is somewhat condensed from his manuscript : 

WORDS OF ADVICE. 

Branch of the United States League of G ilcadites. Adopted Jan. 15, 1851, 
as written and recommended by John Brown. 

"UNION 18 STRENGTH." 

Nothing SO charms the American people as personal bravery. 
Witness the case of Cinques, of everlasting memory, on board the 
" Amistad." The trial for life of one bold and to some extent successful 
man, for defending his rights in good earnest, would arouse more sym- 
pathy throughout the nation than the accumulated wrongs and suffer- 
ings of more than three millions of our submissive colored population. 
We need not mention the Greeks struggling ai^ainst the oppressive 
Turks, the Poles against Russia, nor the Ilnugarians against Austria 
and Russia combincMl, to prove this. No jury can he found in the 
Northern States that would conrict a man for defending his rights to 
the last extremitg. This is well understood hg Southern Congressmen, 
who insisted that the right of trial by jurg should not be granted to 
the fugitive. Colored people have ten times the number of fast 
friends anu)ng the whites than they sui)pose, and would have ten 
times the number they now have were they but half as tnuch in ear- 
liest to secure their dearest rights as they are to ape the follies and 
extravagances of their white neighbors, and to indulge in idle show, 
in ease, and in luxury. Just think of the mcmey expended by indi- 
viduals in your behalf in the past twenty years! Think of the num- 
ber who have been mo])beil and imprisoned on your account! Have 
any of you seen the liranded Hand? Do you remember the names 
of Lovejoy and Tnrrey ? 

Should one of your number be arrested, you must ctdlect together 
as quickly as possible, so as to outnumber yo'ir adversaries who are 
taking an active part against you. Ijct no able-bodied man app((ar 
on the ground unequipped, or with his wea]>t)ns exposed to view : 



1851.1 PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 125 

let that be understood beforehand. Your phms must be known only 
to yourself, and with the understanding that all traitors must die, 
wherever caught and proven to be guilty. *' Whosoever is fearful or 
afraid, let him return and part early from Mount Gilead " (Judges, 
vii. 3; Deut. xx. 8). Give all cowards an opportunity to show it on 
condition of holding their peace. Do not delay one moment after you 
are ready : you ivill lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first 
blow he the signal for all to engage ; and when engaged do not do 
your work by halves, but make clean work icith your enemies, — and 
be sure you meddle not with any others. By going about your busi- 
ness quietly, you will get the job disposed of before the number that 
an uproar would bring together can collect ; and you will have the 
advantage of those who come out against you, for they will be wh(dly 
unprepared with either equipments or matured plans ; all with them 
will be confusion and terrtir. Your enemies will be slow to attack 
you after you have done up the work nicely ; and if they should, they 
will have to encounter your white friends as well as you ; for you 
may safely calculate on a division of the whites, and may by that 
means get to an honorable parley. 

Be firm, determined, and cool ; but let it be understood that you 
are not to be driven to desperation without making it an awful dear 
job to others as well as to you. Give them to know distinctly that 
those who live in wooden houses should not throw fire, and that you 
are just as able to suffer as your white neighbors. After effecting a 
rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of your most prominent 
and influential white friends with your ivives; and that will effectually 
fasten tqwn them the suspicion of being connected ivith you, and will 
compel them to make a common cause tvith you,, whether they would 
othenvise live up to their profession or not. This tvould leave them 
no choice in the matter. Some would doubtless prove themselves 
true of their own choice ; others would flinch. That would be taking 
them at their own words. You may make a tumult in the court-room 
where a trial is going on, by burning gunpowder freely in paper pack- 
ages, if you cannot think of any better way to create a momentary 
alarm, and might possibly give one or more of your enemies a hoist. 
But in such case the prisoner will need to take the hint at once, and 
bestir himself; and so sliould his friends improve the opportunity for 
a general rush. 

A lasso might possibly be applied to a slave-catcher for once 
with good effect. Hold on to your weapons, and never be persuaded 
to leave them, part with them, or have them far away from you. 
Stand by one another and by your friends, while a drop of blood re- 
mains ; and be hanged, if you must, but tell no tales out of school. 
Make no confession. 



126 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1851. 

Uuiou is strength. Without some well-digested arrangements 
nothing to any good purpose is likely to be done, let the demand be 
never so great. Witness the case of Hamlet and Long in New York, 
when there was no well-defined plan of operations or suitable prepa- 
ration beforehand. 

Tlie desired end may be eflfectually secured by the means pro- 
posed ; namely, the enjoyment of our inalienable rights. 

AGREEMENT. 

As citizens of the United States of America, trusting in a just 
and merciful God, whose spirit and all-powerful aid we humbly im- 
plore, tve will ever be true to the flag of our beloved count ri/, always 
acting under it. We. whose names are hereunto affixed, do constitute 
ourselves a branch of the United States League of Gileadites. That 
we will provide ourselves at once with suitable implements, and will 
aid those who do not possess the means, if any such are disposed to 
join us. We invite every colored person whose heart is engaged in 
the performance of our business, whether male or female, old or 
young. The duty of the aged, infirm, and young members of the 
League shall be to give instant notice to all members in case of an 
attack upon any of our people. We agree to have no officers except 
a treasurer and secretary ^ro tern., until after some trial of courage 
and talent of able-bodied members shall enable us to elect officers 
from those who shall have rendered the most important services. 
Nothing but wisdom and undaunted courage, efficiency, and general 
good conduct shall in any way influence us in electing our officers. 

Then follows, in the original manuscript, a set of resolves, 
such as John Brown, with his methodical, forward-looking 
mind, was in the habit of drawing up whenever he organized 
any branch of his movement against slavery. This paper, 
which is sufficiently curious, reads as follows : — 

Resolutions of the Springfield Branch of the United States League 
of Gileadites. Adopted 15th Jan., 1851. 

1. Resolved, That we, whose names are affixed, do constitute our- 
selves a Branch of the United States League, under the above name. 

2. Resolved, That all business of this Branch be conducted with 
the utmost quiet and good order; that we individually provide our- 
selves with suitabl(5 implements witliout delay ; and that we will 
sufficiently aid those who do not possess the means, if any such are 
disposed to join us. 



1851.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 127 

3. Besolved, That a committee of one or more discreet, iufluentiiil 
men be appointed to collect the names of all colored persons whose 
heart is engaged for the performance of our business, whether male 
or female, whether old or young. 

4. Resolved, That the appropriate duty of all aged, infirm, fe- 
male, or youthful members of this Branch is to give instant notice to 
all other members of any attack upon the rights of our people, first 
informing all able-bodied men of this League or Branch, and next, all 
well known friends of the colored people; and that this information 
be confined to such alone, that there may be as little excitement as 
possible, and no noise in the so doing. 

5. Resolved, That a committee of one or more discreet persous 
be appointed to ascertain the condition of colored persons in regard 
to implements, and to instruct others in regard to their conduct iu 
any emergency. 

6. Resolved, That no other officer than a treasurer, with a pres- 
ident and secretary ^5ro tern., be appointed by this Branch, until after 
some trial of the courage and talents of able-bodied members shall 
enable a majority of the members to elect their <ifficers from those 
who shall have rendered the most important services. 

7. Resolved, That, trusting in a just and merciful God, whose 
spirit and all-powerful aid we humbly implore, we will most cheer- 
fully and heartily support and obey such officers, when chosen as be- 
fore ; and that nothing but wisdom, undaunted courage, efficiency, and 
general good conduct shall in any degree influence our individual votes 
in case of such election. 

8. Resolved, That a meeting of all members of this Branch shall 
be immediately called for the purpose of electing officers (to be chosen 
by ballot) after the first trial shall have been made of the qualifica- 
tions of individual members for such command, as before mentioned. 

9. Resolved, That as citizen? of the United States of America we 
will ever be found true to the flag of our beloved country, always 
acting under it.^ 

1 Tl)is is signed by the following members : — 

B. C. Dowling. Heniy Johnson. Heiuy Hector. 

John Smith. G. W. Holmes. John Strong. 

Keverdy Johnson. C. A. Gazam. Wni. Burns. 

Samuel Chandler. Eliza Green. Wm. Gordon. ' 

J. N. Howard. Jane Fowler. Joseph Addams. 

Charles Ilollins. H. J. Jones. Wm. Green. 

Seipio Webb. Ann Johnson. Wm. H. Montague. 

Charles Odell. Cyrus Thomas. Jane Wicks. 

L. Wallace. Henry Robinson. James Madison. 

And seventeen others. 



128 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

This was not the only undertaking of the sort in which 
John Brown lent his aid and advice to the fugitive slaves 
and their free brethren of color at the North. For years 
he labored quietly among them, seeking to bring them to 
a better knowledge of their position, and to form habits 
that would lit them for freedom ; and in this period he 
wrote some curious papers. Among these are the following 
chapters of an unfinished pamphlet called "Sambo's Mis- 
takes," which he began to publish in an obscure Abolitionist 
journal called "The Eamshorn," — with a distant allusion, 
I suppose, to the downfall of Jericho at the blowing of the 
Hebrew horns. The manuscript of these chapters is now in 
the library of the Maryland Historical Society at Baltimore, 
in the handwriting of John Brown, and reads thus : — 



SAMBO'S MISTAKES. 
I. 

Messrs. Editors, — Notwithstanding I may have committed a 
few mistakes in the course of a long Hfe, like others of my colored 
brethren, yet you will perceive at a glance that I have always been 
remarkable for a seasonable discovery of my errors and quick percep- 
tion of the true course. I propose to give you a few illustrations in 
this and the following chapters. 

For instance, when I was a boy I learned to read ; but instead of 
giving my attention to sacred and profiine historj', by which T might 
have become acquainted with the true character of God and of man; 
learned the true course for individuals, societies, and nations to pur- 
sue ; stored my mind with an endless variety of rational and prac- 
tical ideas ; profited by the experience of millions of others of all 
aijes ; fitted myself for the most important station^ in life, and for- 
tified my mind with the best and wisest resfdutions, and noblest 
sentiments and motives, — I have sjient my whole life devouring 
silly novels and other miserable trash, such as most newspapers of 
the day and other popular writings are filled with ; thereby unfitting 
myself for the realities of life, and acquiring a taste for nonsense and 
low wit, so that I have no relish for sober truth, useful knowledge, 
or practical wisdom. By this means I have passed through life 
without profit to myself or others, a mere blank on which noth- 
ing worth perusing is written. But I can see in a twiuk where I 
missed it. 



i 



1850.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 129 

Another error into whic.li I fell in early life was the notion that 
chewing and smoking tobacco would make a man of me, but little 
inferior to some of the whites. The money I spent in this way 
would, with the interest of it, have enabled me to have relieved a 
great many sufferers, supplied me with a well-selected, interesting 
library, and paid for a good farm for the support and comfort of my 
old age ; whereas I have now neither books, clothing, the satisfac- 
tion of having benefited others, nor where to lay my hoary head. 
But I can see in a moment where I missed it. 

Another of the few errors of my life is, that I have joined the 
Free Masons, Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, and a score of 
other secret societies, instead of seeking the company of intelligent, 
wise, and good men, from whom I might have learned much that 
would be interesting, instructive, and useful ; and have in that way 
squandered a great amount of most precious time, and money enough, 
sometimes in a single year, which if I had then put the same out on 
interest and kept it so, would have kept me always above board, 
given me character and influence among men, or have enabled me 
to pursue some respectable calling, so that I might employ others 
to their benefit and improvement ; but, as it is, I have always been 
poor, in debt, and now obliged to travel about in search of employment 
as a hostler, shoe-black, and fiddler. But I retain all my quickness 
of perception ; I can see readily where I missed it. 



II. 

Another error of my riper years has been, that when any meeting 
of colored people has been called in order to consider of any impor- 
tant matter of general interest, I have been so eager to display my 
spouting talents, and so tenacious of some trifling theory or other 
that I have adopted, that I have generally lost all sight of the busi- 
ness in hand, consumed the time disputing about things of no mo- 
ment, and thereby defeated entirely many important measures calcu- 
lated to promote the general welfare ; but I am happy to say I can 
see in a minute where I missed it. 

Another small error of my life (for I never committed great blun- 
ders) has been that I never would (for the sake of union in the 
furtherance of the most vital interests of our race) yield any minor 
point of difference. In this way T have always had to act with but 
a few, or more frequently alone, and could accomplish nothing worth 
living for ; but I have one comfort, I can see in a minute where I 
missed it. 

Another little fault which I have committed is, that if in anything 
another man has failed of coming up to my standard, notwithstanding 

9 



130 . LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1850. 

that he might possess many of the most valuable traits, and be most 
admirably adapted to fill some one important post, I would reject him 
entirely, injure his intluence, oppose his measures, and even gh»ry 
in his defeats, while his intentions were good, and his plans well 
laid. But I have the great satisfaction of being able to say, without 
fear of contradiction, that I can see very quick where I missed it. 



III. 

Another small mistake which I have made is, that I could never 
bring myself to jiractise any present self-denial, although my theories 
have been excellent. For instance, I have bought expensive gay 
clothing, nice canes, watches, safety-chains, finger-rings, breastpins, 
and many other things of a like nature, thinking I might by tliat 
means distinguish myself from the vulgar, as some of the better class 
of whites do. I have always been of the foremost iu getting up 
expensive parties, and running after fashionable amusements ; have 
indulged my appetite freely Whenever I had the means (and even 
with borrowed means) ; have patronized the dealers in nuts, candy, 
etc., freely, and have sometimes bought good suppers, and was 
always a regular customer at livery stables. By these, and many 
other fheans, I have been unable to benefit my suffering brethren, 
and am now but poorly able to keep my own soul and body together; 
but do not think me thoughtless or dull of apprehension, for I can 
see at once where I missed it. 

Another trifling error of my life has been, that I have always ex- 
pected to secure the favor of the whites by tamely submitting to every 
species of indignity, contempt, and wrong, instead of nobly resisting 
their brutal aggressions from principle, and taking my place as a 
man, and assuming the responsibilities of a man, a citizen, a husband, 
a father, a brother, a neighbor, a friend, — as God requires of every 
one (if his neighbor will allow him to do it) ; but I find tliat I get, 
for all my submission, about the same reward that the Southern 
slaveocrats render to the dough-faced statesmen of the North, for 
being bribed and browbeat and fooled and cheated, as the Whigs and 
Democrats love to be, and think themselves highly honored if they 
may be allowed to Ijck up the spittle of a Southerner. I say I get 
the same reward. But I am uncommon quick-sighted ; I can see in 
-a minute where I missed it. 

Another little blunder which T made is, that while I have always 
been a most zealous Abolitionist, I have been constantly at war with 
my friends about certain religious tenets. I was first a Presbyterian, 
but I could never think of acting with my Quaker friends, for they 
were the rankest heretics ; and the Baptists would be in the water, 



1851.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 131 

and the Methodists denied the doctrine of Election, etc. Of later 
years, since becoming enlightened by Garrison, Abby Kelly, and 
other really benevolent persons, 1 have been spending all my force 
on my friends who love the Sabbath, and have felt that all was at 
stake on that point j just as it has proved to be of late in France, in 
the abolition of slavery in their colonies. Now I cannot doubt, 
Messrs. Editors, notwithstanding I have been unsuccessful, that you 
will allow me full credit for my peculiar quick- sightedness. I can see 
in one second where I missed it. 

This paper, dating before 1850, illustrates the points 
of resemblance between Franklin and John Brown, — for 
"Poor Eichard" himself might have written these keen 
and kindly sayings. Brown disliked the effort of writing, 
which led him to shorten almost everything he wrote ; so 
that " Sambo's Mistakes " was one of his longest essays, 
and perhaps the most satirical. He took little part in the 
public debates on slavery, and when in the last year of his 
life (1859), he was present for a day or two at the Antislav- 
ery meetings in Boston, he came out saying, '• Talk ! talk ! 
talk ! — that will never set the slave free." His form of 
activity was something that would operate, as he said in 
his letter of 1834, " like powder confined in rock ; " and 
such was the effect of his own movements in Kansas and 
in Virginia. 

His daughter, Mrs. Thompson, thus speaks of his concern 
for the fugitive slaves in the anxious season of 1850-51, 
when the slaveholders, encouraged by the success of the 
Clay and Webster Compromises, sought to insult and worry 
the people of the North by reclaiming all runaway slaves 
wherever they might be : — 

" Father did not close up his wool business in Springfield when he 
went to North Elba, and had to make several journeys back and forth 
;'n 1849-50. He was at Springfield in January, 1851, soon after the 
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, and went round among his colored 
friends there who had been fugitives, urging them to resist the law, 
no matter by M'hat authority it should be enforced. He told them to 
arm themselves with revolvers, men and women, and not to be taken 
alive. When he got to North Elba he told us about the Fugitive 
Slave Law, and bade us resist any attempt that might be made to 
take any fugitive from our town, regardless of fine or imprisonment. 



132 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1851. 

Our faithful boy Cyrus was oue of that class ; aud our feelings were 
so roused that we would aU have defended him, though the women 
folks had res(jrted to hot water. Father at this time said, * Their 
cup of iniquity is almost full.' One evening as I was singing ' The 
Slave Father Mourning for his Children,' containing these words, — 

' Ye 're gone from me, my gentle ones, 
With all your shouts of mirth ; 
A silence is within my walls, 
A darkness round my hearth,' — 

father got up and walked the floor, and before I could finish the 
song, he said, ' Rutli ! don't sing any more; it is too sad ! ' " 

This letter to Mrs. Brown relates to the same emer- 
gency : — 

Springfield, Mass., Jan. 17, 1851. 
Dear Wife, — ... Since the sending off to slavery of Long 
from New York, I have improved my leisure hours quite busily with 
colored people here, in advising them how to act, and in giving them 
all the encouragement in my power. They very much need encour- 
agement aud advice ; and some of them are so alarmed that they tell 
me they cannot sleep on account of either themselves or their wives 
aud childreu. I can only say I think I have been enabled to do 
sometliiug to revive their broken spirits. I want all my family to 
imagine themselves in the same dreadful condition. My only spare 
time being taken up (often till late hours at night) in the way I 
speak of, has prevented me from the gloomy homesick feelings 
which had before so much opj)ressed me : not that I forget my 
family at all. 

Some of the advice thus given has already been copied : 
more condensed suggestions are as follows : — 

" Collect quietly, so as to outnumber the adversaries who are taking 
an active part against you ; make clean work with all such, and be 
sure you meddle not with any other. Do not delay oue moment after 
you have a fair majority of your own men over those who are actually 
about the mischief. Let the collection of a fair majority be your sig- 
nal to engage ; and when engaged do not do your business by halves. 
Wlien <_»ne of you engage, let all the others fall to work without noise 
or confusion. Stand by one another and by your friends while a droji 
of blood remains, and be hanged if you must, but tell no tales out of 
school ; make no confessions. Hold on to your tools, and never be 



1846.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 133 

scared or persuaded, by the world combined, to part with them, or to 
leave tliein away from you. Do not trust them with friend or foe. 
Always keep your families advised of the places where you may be 
found when absent from home." 

Four or five years earlier tlian this, and soon after 
Brown's arrival in Springfield, he had begun to communi- 
cate his purpose of attacking slavery by force to the colored 
men whom he found to be worthy of trust. In 1846 there 
was living in Springfield (where he still resides) a fugitive 
slave from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, — Thomas Thomas 
by name, — whom Brown engaged to work for him as a porter 
in his wool warehouse. ^' How early shall I come to-morrow," 
said Thomas the day he was hired. " We begin work at 
seven," said ^I'own ; " but I wish you would come round 
earlier, so that I can talk with you." Thomas therefore 
went to his employer's the next morning between five and 
six o'clock, found Brown waiting for him, and there re- 
ceived from him the outlines of his plan to liberate the 
slaves, and was invited to join in the enterprise, which he 
agreed to do. This was nine years before Brown went to 
Kansas, and two years before Sumner, Wilson, Adams, S. C. 
Phillips, Hoar, and their friends formed the Free Soil party 
of Massachusetts. Thomas was afterward sent by Brown to 
look up Madison Washington, the leader of the courageous 
slaves of the vessel " Creole," who was wanted as a leader 
among the colored recruits that were to join the band of 
liberators ; but Washington, when found, proved to be an 
unfit person for such a task. 

It is said that the first definite thought of the place where 
he should make his attack upon the slave system came to 
Brown while he was surveying lands for Oberlin College, in 
what is now West Virginia, in 1840. These lands were, in 
part at least, in the county of Jackson, which borders on 
Ohio, and is separated from that State by the Ohio River. 
It is west of the Alleghanies, and is not very mountainous ; 
but in approaching or leaving it Brown had occasion to ob- 
serve how useful those mountains would be to any band of 
men who were aiming at emancipation by force. " The 
mountains and swamps of the South," said Brown in Kansas, 



184 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1840. 

" were intended by God as a refuge for the slave, and a de- 
fence against liis master." That lie cherished this purpose 
when he wrote the following from West Virginia, nearly 
twenty years before his foray at Harper's Ferry, is certain ; 
and the thought that he had his great project in mind then, 
gives an interest to the brief letter : — 

, To his Family. 

EiPLF.Y, Va., April 27, 1840. 

... I like the country as well as I expected, aud its inhabitants 
rather Letter ; and 1 have seen the sput where, if it be the wUl of 
Providence, I hope one day to live with my family. . . . Were 
the inhabitants as resolute and industrious as the Northern people, 
and did they understand how to manage as well, they would become 
rich ; but they are not generally so. They seem to have no idea of 
improvement in their cattle, slieep, or hogs, nor to know the use of 
enclosed pasture-fields for their stock, but spend a large portion 
of their time in hunting for their cattle, sheep, and horses ; and the 
same habit continues from father to son. . . . By comparing them 
with the people of other parts of the country, I can see new and 
abundant proof that knowledge is power. I think we might be very 
useful to them on many accounts, were we so disposed. May God 
in mercy keep us all, and enable us to get wisdom ; and with all our 
getting or losing, to get understanding ! 

* Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Before John Brown went to the Adirondacs to look after 
the colored people there, he seems to have had another 
project of the same sort in view, in connection with these 
Oberlin lands. The records of that Ohio college (where 
Avhite and colored students were educated together, before 
any other such institution ventured to do so) show the fol- 
lowing entries : — 

" April 1, 1840. In the Prudential Committee, Brother John 
Brown from Hudson being present, some negotiations were opened 
in respect to our Virginia lands. 

" April 3, 1840. A communication from Brother John Brown, of 
Hudson, was presented and read by the Secretary, containing a pro- 
position to visit, survey, and make the necessary investigation re- 
specting boundaries, etc., of those lands, for (me dollar per day, and 
a moderate allowance for necessary expenses ; said paper frankly 



1840.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 135 

expressing also his design of viewing the lands, as a preliminary step 
to locating his family upon them, should the opening prove a favor- 
able one : vi'hereupon, Voted, that said proposition he acceded to, and 
that a commission and needful outfit be furnished by the Secretary 
and Treasurer." 

^' July 14, 1840. The report of John Brown, respecting his 
agency to Virginia and examination of the Smith donation of land, 
was read by the Secretary and deferred." 

" Aug. II, 1840. Voted, that the Secretary address a letter to 
John Brown, of Hudson, in reference to the Virginia land agency." 

In the records of the Board of Trustees, under date of 
Aug. 28, 1840, is the following minute : — 

" Voted, that the Prudential Committee be authorized to perfect 
negotiations, and convey by deed to Brother John Brown, of Hudson, 
one thousand acres of our Virginia land on the conditions suggested 
in the correspondence wliich has already transpired between him and 
the committee." 

There is nothing in the record of the subsequent action of 
the Prudential Committee or of the Trustees which goes to 
show that a deed was actually given to John Brown, or that 
the conditions were fulfilled by him. 

Concerning the opening of this negotiation, I find this 
letter from an Oberlin official, Levi Burnell, to John Brown's 
father, Owen, who was a Trustee of the college : — 

Oberlin, April 3, 1840. 

Dear Brother Brown, — I received your favor by your son 
John, and our committee have opened negotiations with him pre- 
Hminary to his visiting our Virginia lands. We hope for a fevorable 
issue, both for him and the institution. When he has thorouglily 
examined the papers and spent the necessary time upon the premises, 
we expect that he will Icnow more than all of us about the matter; 
and I trust we shall feel disposed to offer liberal inducements for him 
and others to settle there, if that is best. Should he succeed in clear- 
ing up titles without difScuhy or lawsuits, it would be easy, as it 
appears to me, to make provision for religious and school privileges, 
and by proper efforts, with the blessing of God, soon see that wilder- 
ness bud and blossom as the rose. 

The main outlines of Brown's plan have been given by 
one of his Kansas company, Eichard Eealf, who heard him 



136 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

explain it in Canada in 1858, and who professed to have 
made this statement up from Brown's own words. It is 
evidently colored and exaggerated in many particulars by 
the imagination of the reporter, and at several points is 
contrary to what is otherwise known. But with these 
abatements, it may be taken as a general outline of what 
Brown actually said. This is Realf's report, which it needs 
a long breath to read, for its odd rhetoric : — 

"John Brown stated that for twenty or thirty years the idea had 
possessed him like a passion of giving liberty to tlie slaves ; that he 
made a journey to England, during which he made a tour upon the 
European continent, inspecting all fortifications,, and especially all 
earthwork forts which he could lind, with a view of applying the 
knowledge thus gained, with modifications and inventions of his own, 
to a mountain warfare in the United States. He stated that he had 
read all the books upon insurrectionary warfare that he could lay his 
hands on : the Roman warfare, the successful opposition of the Span- 
ish chieftains during the period when Spain was a Roman province, 
— how with ten thousand men, divided and subdivided into small 
companies, acting simultaneously yet separately, they withstood the 
whole consolidated power of the Roman Empire through a number 
of years. Iti addition to this, he had become very familiar with the 
successful warfare waged by Schamyl,^ the Circassian chief, against 
the Russians ; he had posted himself in relation to the war of Tous- 
saint L'Ouverture ; he had become thoroughly acquainted with the 
wars in Hayti and the islands round about ; and from all these things 
he had drawn the conclusion, — believing, as he stated there he did 
believe, and as we all (if I may judge from myself) believed, — that 
upon the first intimation of a plan formed for the liberation of the 
slaves, they would immediately rise all over the Southern States. 
He supposed that they would come into the mountains to join him, 

1 It is singular that while this Schamyl, the daring Lesghian chieftaiii, 
who, in alliance with tlie Circassians, had defied the Czar for twenty years, 
was visiting St. Petersburg as the honored guest of his foeman, John Brown 
at that very time was captured and executed by the American slaveholdeis. 
Schamyl was at once the warrior and tlie prophet of his race, and in the fast- 
nesses of the Caucasus, where the Russians assailed him, he had worn out 
their armies by delays, ambuscades, and surprises. At last, after enormous 
losses of men and material by the Russians, tliey stormed his strongliold, 
and he surrendered in 1859. The same New York newspapers whieli con- 
tained the news of Brown's failure described the hospitable reception of 
Schamyl at the capital of Nicholas. 



1858.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT. 137 

where he purposed to work, and that by flocking to his standard 
they would enable him (making the line of mountains which cuts 
diagonally through Maryland and Virginia, down through the South- 
ern States into Tennessee and Alabama, the base of his operations) 
to act upon the plantations on the plains lying on each side of that 
range of mountains ; that we should be able to establish ourselves 
in the fastnesses. And if any hostile action were taken against us, 
either by the militia of the States or by the armies of the United 
States, we purposed to defeat first the militia, and next, if possible, 
the troops of the United States ; and then organize the free blacks 
under the provisional constitution, which would carve out for the 
locality of its jurisdiction all that mountainous region in which the 
blacks were to be established, in which they were to be taught 
the useful and mechanical arts, and all the business of life. Schools 
were also to be established, and so on. The negroes were to be his 
soldiers." 

This was in fact the purpose of Brown, — to enlist a suffi- 
cient number of the slaves and the free negroes of the North 
as soldiers, without exciting a general insurrection, and then 
to establish his armed force where it could best annoy the 
slaveholders and make their property unsafe. He intended 
to officer his army with white and colored men, but to use 
the latter for soldiers chiefly. He had a higher opinion 
than most men at that time of the capacity of the negro as 
a soldier and a citizen, — an opinion since justified by events. 
I have often heard Brown dwell on this subject, and mention 
instances of his fitness to take care of himself ; saying, in 
his quaint way, " negroes behaved so much like folks, he 
almost thought they were so." He thought a forcible sepa- 
ration between master and slave might be necessary, in order 
to educate the slaves for self-government. 

A part of Brown's preparation for the warfare in which 
he meant to engage was his Spartan mode of life and his 
self-denial in most matters of food, dress, amusement, and 
personal comfort. His daughter's testimony is clear on this 
point ; and all who knew him can recall instances of this 
self-denial. He followed strictly the sage's injunction, " At 
rich men's tables eat thou bread and pulse ; " and he was 
rather averse to accept the hospitality of those friends who 
lived luxuriously. He avoided the sumptuous hotels of 



138 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1839. 

New York and other cities, and went by preference to plain 
taverns where farmers and drovers Avere entertained. His 
dress was neat but plain, and he wore the same garments a 
long time, always from choice, and sometimes from necessity. 
He never used tobacco in any form, and seldom drank wine 
or spirits. When at home he drank milk or water. It was 
not till a few years before his death that he drank tea or 
coffee, and he took up this habit only from the desire to 
give no trouble to others ; for he found that in travelling it 
sometimes annoyed good people to see their guest drink 
water instead of tea. He never ate cheese or butter ; and 
said that as a boy, ten years old, he was once sent of an 
errand where a lady gave him a piece of bread and butter ; 
he was so bashful that he did not dare tell her he never ate 
butter, but as soon as he got out of the house he ran as fast 
as he could for a long time, and then threw her gift out of 
sight. He had great skill in providing for a company of 
men, and could have maintained a force in the field at very 
little cost. But his health was much affected in his later 
years by malaria and other ills of advancing age, from which, 
when he entered upon active service, he lost much time and 
suffered great hardshij)s.^ 

1 Jason Brown, who remembers well the oath taken by himself and his 
family when his father first made known to them his purpose of attaeking 
slavery by force, thinks the time was not 18:37, but 1839. The place, he 
says, was Franklin, and the time was "when the colored preacher Mr. 
Fayette was at father's; and he (Mr. F. ) and mother, John, Jason, and 
Owen WCTe sworn to secrecy, and to do all in tlieir power to .abolish slav- 
ery." Jason also thinks he cut the date of the year on a rock near the 
swimming-place in Hudson which he and Owen used to frequent. Mrs. 
Brown gave me the impression it was in 1838 ; but the exact date is 
unimportant. The Oberlin College enterprise was connected with the suc- 
cessful effort made by Miss Martineau and others in England in December, 
1839, to raise funds for the college in which education was given witliout 
distinction of color or sex. See "Harriet Martineau's Autobiography," 
edited by Mrs. Chapman, vol. ii. pp. 345, 346. 



1841.J FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 139 



CHAPTER VI. 

FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 

A LTHOUGH he lived so actively in his business affairs, 
-^^ and planned so much public activity, yet a great part 
of John Brown's life was spent in the most quiet, humble, 
and domestic manner. Before entering, therefore, upon 
the startling record of his public career, let me disclose more 
fully his home life, and his affectionate, practical relations 
to all those who depended upon him ; which can best be 
done by his family letters at different dates, before he sent 
his sons to Kansas or set forth to join them there. 

To his Children. 

Hudson, Jan. 18, 1841. 
Dear son John, — Since I parted with you at Hudson some 
thoughts have passed through my mind which my intense anxiety 
for your welfare prompts me to communicate by writing. I think 
the situation in which you have been pLiced by Providence at this 
early period of your life will afford to yourself and others some little 
test of the sway you may be expected to exert over minds in after life, 
and I am glad, on the whole, to have you brought in some measure 
to the test in your youth. If you cannot now go into a disorderly 
country school and gain its confidence and esteem, and reduce it to 
good order, and waken up the energies and the very soul of every ra- 
tional being in it, — yes, of every mean, ill-behaved, ill-governed boy 
and girl that compose it, and secure the good- will of the parents, — 
then how are you to stimulate asses to attempt a passage of the Alps ? 
If you run with footmen and they should weary you, how should you 
contend with horses ? If in the land of peace they have wearied you, 
then how will you do in the swelling of Jordan ? Shall I answer the 
question myself? "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, 
who giveth liberally and upbraideth not." Let me say to you again, 



140 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1845. 

love them all, aud commend them and yourself to the God to whom 
Solomon sought in his youth, and he shall bring it to pass. You 
have heard me tell of dividing a school into two large spelling-classes, 
and of its effects ; if you should think best, and can remember the 
process, you can try it. Let the grand reason, that one course is 
right and another wrong, he kept continually before your own mind 
aud before your school. 

From your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 



Akron, May 23, 1845. 

Dear son John, — Yours of the 28th April we did not get very 
seasfmably, as we have been very busy, and not at the post-office 
often. We are all obliged for your letter, and I hope thankful for 
any comfort or success that may attend you. If the days of mourn- 
ing have indeed and in truth ceased, then I trust all is well, — all is 
well as it should he ; and 1 have known fair days to follow after very 
foul weather. The great trouble is, we are apt to get too damp in a 
wet, foggy spell. We are all well but little Annie, who is afflicted 
with a singular eruption of the skin, and is withal quite unwell. We 
get along in our business as well as we ever have done, I think. We 
have some sheep, but not as many as for two seasons past. Matters 
seem to go well betwixt us and our friend Perkins, aud for anything 
that I know of, our worldly prospects are as good as we can hear. 
I hope that entire leanness of soul may not attend any little success 
in business. I do not know as we have yet any new plans ; when we 
have, we will let you hear. We are nearly through another yean- 
ing time, and have lost but very few. Have not yet counted tails : 
think there may be about four hundred. Never had a finer or more 
thrifty lot. Expect to begin washing sheep next week. Have re- 
ceived our medals and diploma. They are splendid toys, and appear 
to be knock-down arguments among the sheep-growers who have 
seen them. All were well at Hudson a few days since. Father was 
here, and had just moved into the Humiston house out west. You 
did not say in your letter whether you ever conversed with him in 
regard to his plans for his old age, as was talked of when you wore 
here aud were hel[>ing pick sheep ; should like to know if yon did, 
etc. Cannot tell you much more now, except it he that we all appear 
to think a great deal more about this world than about the next, 
which proves that we are still very foolish. I leave room for some 
others of the family to write, if they will. 

Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 



1846.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 141 

May 30, 1845. 

Dear Son, — We are at this time all well, but very busy prepar- 
ing for shearing. Have had a most dreadful frost over night, and am 
afraid the wheat is all killed. There will be here no article of fruit. 
I trust you will perform your service with patient spirit, doing with 
your might. The children wiU write you hereafter. 
Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, June 6, 1846. 

Dear Son and Daughter, — I wrote you some time since, en- 
closing five dollars ; but neither of you have let me know Avhether 
you received it or not, nor how much you were in immediate want of. 
Two lines would have told me all, and that you were or were not 
well. I now enclose you ten dollars ; and I want to hear from you 
without one moment's delay, or I cannot till I get to New England 
(possibly). Say to me how much you must have for your bills at 
Austinburg and expenses back to this place. I can calculate for 
John's expenses to Springfield from here, and will provide for tliat. 
I have some nice cloth for an entire suit, which I think I had better 
take for you (John) to Springfield, so that you can have it made up 
there if you have any want of clothes before winter. We have plenty 
of it on hand, and it will save paying out the money. We are getting 
a good pair of calfskin boots made for you. We intend to take on 
a good supply of nice well-made shirts, in order to save your paying 
there for such things more than is indispensable, and also to prevent 
your being delayed after you come back here with Ruth. 

It is barely possible that Jason and I may come by way of Austin- 
burg. We expect to start in a little more than a week from this. 
If I do not come by your place on my way, you may look for another 
letter before I start for the East. It may be that some of your bills 
can lie unpaid till I can sell some of our wool, and let you draw on 
Perkins & Brown at Springfield for the amount, instead of making 
a remittance by mail. Some of your merchants or other business 
men might be glad to get a small draft of that kind, payable at sight. 
Let me know all about matters. All are well here. 
Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

The letter above printed was written to John and Ruth 
Brown, who were then at school, or taking lessons, in Aus- 
tinburg, Ohio. Their father was about removing to Massa- 
chusetts. 



142 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1846. 

To his Wife and Children. 

Springfield, Sept. 29, 1846. 

Dear Mary, — ... Ydur letter dated the 20th was received last 
night, and aflbrded me a real though a mournful satisfaction. That 
you had received, or were to receive, a letter from either John or 
Jason I was in perfect ignorance of till you informed me ; and I am 
glad to learn that, wholly uninfluenced by me, they have shown a 
disposition to aflford you the comfort in your deep affliction which the 
nature of the case would admit of. Nothing is scarcely equal with 
me to the satisfaction of seeing that one portion of my remaining 
family are not disposed to exclude from their sympathies and their 
warm affections another portion. I accept it as one of the most 
grateful returns that can be made to me for any care or exertion on 
my part to promote either their present or their future well-being ; 
and while I am able to discover such a feeling, I feel assured that 
notwithstanding Grod has chastised us often and sore, yet he has not 
entirely withdrawn himself from us nor forsaken us utterly. The 
sudden and dreadful manner in which he has seen fit to call our dear 
little Kitty to take her leave of us is, I need not teU you how much, 
in my mind ; but before Him I will bow my head in submission and 
hold my peace. ... I have sailed over a somewhat stormy sea for 
nearly half a century, and have experienced enough to teach me 
thoroughly that I may most reasonably buckle up and be prepared 
for the tempest. Mary, let us try to maintain a cheerful self-command 
while we are tossing up and down •, and let our motto still be Action, 
Action, — as we have but one life to live. 

Afi"ectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., Jan 5, 1847. 
Dear daughter Ruth, — Yours dated the 20th and Jason's dated 
the 16th of December were both received in season, and were very 
grateful to our feelings, as we are anxious to hear from home often, 
anil had become very uneasy before we got word from Jason. We 
are middling well, and very much perplexed with our \Aork, accounts, 
and correspondence. We expect now to go home, if our lives and 
health are spared, next month, and we feel rejoiced that the time is 
so near when we hope to meet you all once more. Sometimes my 
imagination follows those of my family who have passed behind the 
scenes ; and I would almost rejoice to be permitted to make them a 
personal visit. I have outlived nearly half of all my numerous fixm- 
ily, and I ought to realize that in any event a large proporti(jn of my 
journey is travelled over. 



1847.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 143 

You say that you would like very much to have a letter from me, 
with as much good advice as I will give. Well, what do you sup- 
pose I feel most anxious for in regard to yourself and all at home ? 
Would you believe that I ever had any such care on my mind about 
them as we read that Job had about his family (not that I would 
ever think to compare myself with Job) ? Would you believe that 
the long story would be that ye sin not, that you form no foolish 
attachments, and that you be not a companion of fools? 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, March 12, 1847. 

Dear son John, — Yours dated Feb. 27th I this day received. 
It was written about the same time I reached this place again. I 
am glad to learn that you are relieved in a good measure from another 
season of suffering. Hope you will make the right improvement of 
it. I have been here nearly two M-eeks. Have Captain Spencer, 
Freeman, the Hudsons, together with Schlessinger and Ramsden, all 
helping me again. Have turned about four thousand dollars' worth 
of wool into cash since I returned ; shall probably make it up to 
seven thousand by the 16th. Sold Musgrave the James Wallace lot 
yesterday for fifty-eight cents all round. Hope to get pretty much 
through by the middle of Ajjril. Have paid your account for the 
" Cincinnati W^eekly Herald and Philanthropist," together with two 
dollars for one year's subscription to "National Era," being in all 
three dollars. I should have directed to have the "National Era " 
sent you at Austinburg, but could not certainly know as you would 
be there to take it. You had better direct to have it sent to you 
there. I now intend to send Ruth on again soon after my return. 
Jason writes on the 3d that all are well at home. I feel better than 
when I left home, and send my health to all in and about Austinburg. 
Yours affectionately, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., April 12, 1847. 

Dear son John, — Yours of the 5th is just received. I was very 
glad to learn by it that you were then well. I ha*d begun to feel 
anxious, not hearing for so long a time since you M'rote, that you 
were unwell. My own health is middling good ; and I learn that 
all at home were well a few days since. I enclose ten dollars; and 
I must say that when you continue to make indefinite applica- 
tions for money, without giving me the least idea of the am(»unt you 
need, after I have before complained of the same thing, — ■ namely, 



144 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1847. 

your not. telling me frankly how much you need, — it makes me feel 
injured. Suffice it to say that it always affords me the greatest 
pleasure to assist you when I can; hut if you want five, ten, twenty, 
or fifty dollars, why not say so, and then let me help you so far as I 
am able ? It places me in an awkward fix. I am much more will- 
ing to send you all you actually need (if in my power), than to send 
any when you do not tell what your wants require. 

I do not now see how we could make the exchange Mr. Walker 
proposes in regard to sheep, but should suppose it might be done to 
his mind somewhere in our direction. I should think your brother 
student might pay the postage of a letter ordering the " Era" to yt)U 
at Austinburg till the year expires. I have ten times as many papers 
as I can read. Have got on middling well, since I wrote you, with 
the wool-trade, and mean to return shortly, and send Ruth to Austin- 
burg. Do not see how to take time to give you further particulars 
now, having so much every hour to attend to. Write me on receipt 
of this. Will send you a Steubenville report. 

Afi"ectionately your father, 

John Brown. 

P. S. Had I sent you twenty dollars, yon deprive me of the com- 
fort of knowing that your wishes have been at all complied with. 



Akron, July 9, 1847. 

Dear son John, — I wrote you yesterday to urge your coming 
here to keep up the family for a few m(mths, as I knew of no way to 
provide for Jason or Owen's board ; but that matter is all got over, 
and the probability is that Jason will have a wife as soon as you. 
We mean to have the business done up before we leave, so as to 
have no breaking up of the family here. I would now say that if 
you can get ready and meet us at Buffalo on the 14tli or L5th, we 
shall be glad to have you go on with us. I would be willing to 
delay for a day or more in order to bring it about. It would seem as 
though you might bring it about by that time, so early as to get here 
on the ICth, as you wrote. As matters now stand, I feel very anx- 
ious to have you go on with us, — and partly on Frederick's account. 
I sent you yesterday a certificate of deposit for fifty dollars, directed to 
Vernon, care of Miss Wealthy Hotchkiss.^ Should it so happen that 
you get to Buffalo before we do, wait for us at Bennett's Hotel ; or 
we will wait for you awhile. Inquire for us at Bennett's, or of George 
Palmer, Esq. If you get this in season, you may perhaps get to 

^ Soon to be Mrs. John Brown, Jr. 



1851.1 FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 145 

Buffalo before we can. Mary is still quite feeble. Frederick appears 
to be quite as well as when you left. Say to Ruth I remember her. 
Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Sept. ], 1847. 

Dear daughter Ruth, — I have not heard from you since John 
left to come on here ; and I can assure you it is not for want of inter- 
es' in your welfare that I have so long delayed writing you. We 
got over the tedious job of moving as well as we could expect, and 
have both families comfortably fixed. Frederick has been under the 
treatment of one of the most celebrated physicians in Massachusetts, 
and for some part of the time has appeared to be as well as ever, but 
has not appeared so well for a few days past. Your mother is quite 
unwell with a bilious fever, and has been so for a day or two. We 
think she is doing well now, and hope she will get around soon. 
We have almost all of us complained more or less since we got on 
here. We have heard from Akron every few days since we came on. 
All were well there a short time since. 

Our business here seems to go on middling well, and should noth- 
ing befall me I hope to see you about the last of this month or early 
next. John says he will write you soon. I supposed he had done 
so before this, until now. We are very busy, and suppose we are 
likely to be for the present. We expect you to WTite us how you get 
along, of course. 

Affectionately yours, 

John Brown. 

Vernon, Oneida Co., N. Y., March 24, 1851. 
Dear son John, — I now enclose draft on New York for fifty 
dollars, which I think you can dispose of to some of the merchants 
for a premium at this time in the season. I shall pay you the bal- 
ance as soon as I can ; but it may be out of my power until after we 
sell our wool, which I think there is a prospect now of doing early. 
I hope to get through here so as to be on our way again to Ohio be- 
fore the week closes, but want you and Jason both to hold on and 
take the best possible care of the flock until I do get on, at any rate. 
I wrote you last week that the family is on the road : the boys are 
driving on the cattle, and my wife and the little girls are at Oneida 
Depot, waiting for me to go on with them.^ 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

^ The family were removing from North Elba to Akron, leaving Ruth 
and her husband, Henry Thompson, iu the Adirondac woods. 

10 



146 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BROWN. 11851. 

To his Wife. 

Boston, Mass., Dec. 22, 1851. 

Dear Mary, — ... There is an unusual amount of very inter- 
esting things happening in this and other countries at present, and no 
one can foresee what is yet to follow. Tlie great excitement pro- 
duced by the coming of Kossuth, and the last news of a new revolution 
in France, with the prospect that all Europe will soon again he in a 
blaze, seems to have taken all by surprise. I have only to say in 
regard to those things, I rejoice in them, from the full belief that God 
is carrying out his eternal purpose in them all. I hope the boys 
will be particularly careful to have no waste of feed of any kind, for 
I am strongly impressed with the idea that a long, severe winter is 
before us. 

This letter shows how closely Brown attended to politics 
in Europe as well as in America, notwithstanding his la- 
borious life and the urgency of his private affairs. The 
" new revolution in France " was the coiq) d'etat of Louis 
Napoleon, which happened in this month of December, 
1851. At the same time the Hungarian patriot Kossuth 
was exciting great enthusiasm in Massachusetts and the 
Northern States in general ; Charles Sumner was celebrat- 
ing him in an eloquent speech at Washington ; Emerson at 
Concord was bidding him welcome to the historic battle- 
ground there ; and Theodore Parker, in his Boston pulpit, 
was preaching in behalf of Hungarian independence. The 
friends of Brown, on whom he relied in later years, were 
singularly in accord with him in 1851, though neither Emer- 
son nor Parker nor Sumner had then seen Brown. I was 
then a student at Exeter, preparing for Harvard College, 
and I remember the interest that Kossuth aroused there. 
An old lady with whom I sometimes took, tea, and with 
whom in her youth Daniel Webster had taken tea when a 
student at Exeter fifty-five years before, used to divide the 
talk at her little round tea-table between anecdotes of Web- 
ster (whom she admired for his beauty and eloquence, but 
abhorred for his betrayal of the Northern cause) and eulogies 
of Kossuth, vSumner, Garrison, and the other friends of free- 
dom in Europe and America. While Miss Betsey Clifford 
thus manifested her enthusiasm at the age of seventy, her 



I 



1850.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 147 

young guest at the age of twenty was publishing verses ad- 
dressed to Kossuth in praise and to Webster in censure of 
their public action. But the pithy comment of John Brown 
— " God is carrying out his eternal purpose in them all " — 
was as profitable an utterance as that of any scholar or 
statesman of that period. He belonged to the school of the 
prophets, though a herdsman like Amos the Hebrew and 
the Arabian seer. I have been able to find but few of 
Brown's letters in the years 1850-51, when the first general 
agitation against the aggression of Southern slaveholders 
took place in the North ; nor do his earlier letters contain 
much allusion to the antislavery crusade of Garrison, Gerrit 
Smith, Arthur Tappan, Wendell Phillips, and the other 
emancipationists. But he took the warmest interest in 
these discussions from the first, and like Garrison and his 
associates early declared against the colonizationists, who 
would send the free negroes away to Liberia. Milton Lusk, 
Brown's brother-in-law, already quoted, has given me some 
details of antislavery action at Hudson fifty years ago. At 
that time Kev. Charles B. Storrs, a devoted antislavery man, 
was at the head of the Western Reserve College in Hudson, 
and a communicant, if not pastor, of a Congregational church 
there. In that to which Mr. Lusk belonged it had been 
customary before 1835 to take up a collection occasionally 
for the cause of colonization, which was advocated from the 
pulpit by agents of the Colonization Society. On one of 
these occasions "Brother Lusk" was asked to take up the 
collection as usual, but refused. His pastor earnestly ques- 
tioned him why ; whereupon Milton Lusk showed the cler- 
gyman a speech or letter of Chief-Justice Marshall, in 
which colonization was advocated as a relief to the Virginia 
slaveholders, by removing the troublesome class of the free 
negroes from the State. '' If that is genuine," argued Mr. 
Lusk, ''then the slaveholders are asked to give money for 
colonization to protect slavery; while we are asked for 
money to remove slavery by colonization. If our contri- 
butions go into the same fund, I for one will never help 
to raise another dollar." The pastor could not deny the 
premises of his parishioner, and was forced to accept his 
conclusion ; but not long afterward Milton Lusk was ex- 



148 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1852 

communicated for various errors of opinion, among which 
the colonization incident was not quite forgotten.-^ 

Troy, N. Y,, Jan. 23, 1852. 

Dear Children, — I returned here on the evening of the 19th 
inst., having left Akron on the 14th, the date of your letter to John. 
I was very glad to hear from you again in that way, not having re- 
ceived anything from you while at home. I left all in usual health, 
and as comfortahle as could be expected ; but am afflicted with you 
on account of your little boy. Hope to hear by return mail that you 
are all well. As in this trouble you are only tasting of a cup I have 
had to drink deeply, and very often, I need not tell you how fully I 
can sympathize with you in your anxiety. . . . 

How long we shall continue here is beyond our ability to foresee, 
but think it very probable that if you*write us by return mail we 
shall get your letter. Something may possibly happen that may 
enable us (or one of us) to go and see you, but do not look for us. I 
should feel it a gi'eat privilege if I could. We seem to be getting 
along well with our business so far, but progress miserably slow. 
My journeys back and forth this winter have been very tedious. If 
yoii find it difficult for you to pay for Douglass' paper, 1 wish you 
would let me know, as I know I took liberty in ordering it contin- 
ued. You have been very kind in helping me, and I do not meau 
to make myself a burden. 

Y^our affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, March 20, 1852. 
Dear Children, — I reached home on the 18th at evening, meet- 
ing with father on the way, who went home with me and left us 
yesterday; he kept me so busied that I had no time to write you 
yesterday. I found all in usual health but Frederick, who has one 
of his poor turns again ; it is not severe, and we hope will not be so. 
I now enclose the Flanders lease. Y^ou will discover that the bar- 
gain I had with him for the second year is simjdy an extension of the 

^ " ' I threw down Judge Marshall's speech and stamped on it,' said Mil- 
ton Lusk. ' Why, Milton, what ails you ? ' said my sister. I told her I 
had got through raising money for colonization. I asked our minister if 
our contributions here in Ohio went into the same chest with those from 
Virginia, where men sold slaves and put a part of the purchase-money into 
the contribution-box ? He said he supposed so. Then, I said, I could have 
nothing to do with it." 



i 



1852.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 149 

time made on the back of it, except that for the last year I was to 
pay the taxes. Owen says he thinks the tooth fell out of the harrow 
while lying on a pile of sticks and old hoards near the corner of the 
barn, between that and the house ; and that if you do not find it 
among the rubbish, nor in the house or barn, — over the door from 
the ham into the back shed, — he cannot tell where it will be found. 
Expecting to hear from you again soon, 

I remain your afi"ectionate father, 

John Brown. 



Akeon, Ohio, May 14, 1852. 

Dear Children, — I have a great deal to write, and but very 
little time in which to do it. A letter was received from you, which 
Salmon put in his pocket before it had been opened, and lost it. This 
grieved me very much indeed ; I could hardly be reconciled to it. 
We have been having the measles, and now have the whooping- 
cough among the children very bad. Your mother was confined by 
the birth of the largest and strongest boy she ever had two weeks 
ago, and has got along well considering all our difficulties. The 
little one took the measles, and was very sick, and has now the 
whooping-cough so bad that we expect to lose him ; we thought 
him dying for some time last night. Annie and Sarah cough badly ; 
Oliver is getting over it. Our little one has dark hair and eyes like 
Watson's ; notwithstanding our large number, we are very anxious to 
retain him. 

Jason and Owen have gone on to a large farm of Mr. Perkins over 
in Talmadge. Frederick is with us, and is pretty well. The family 
of Mr. Perkins have the whooping-cough, and have had the measles. 
They have another son, a few days older than ours. Our other 
friends are well, so far as we know. Father was with us, quite well, 
a few days ago. We have had so much rain that we could do but 
little towards spring crops. Have planted our potatoes. The grass 
is forward ; great prospect of apples and ' cherries, but no peaches 
scarcely. Have twelve of the finest calves I ever saw. Our Troy 
suit went in our favor, but not to the extent that it ought. I 
have bought out the interests of Jason and Owen in the lot we 
got of Mr. Smith, on which, I suppose, you are living before this. 
I can send you no more now than my earnest wishes for your 
good, and my request that as soon as you can you send me the 
substance of your last letter, with such additions as you may be able 
to make. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 



150 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1852. 

Akron, Ohio, July 20, 1852. 

Dear son John, — I wrote you a few days before the death of 
our infant son, saying we expected to lose him ; sinee then we liave 
some of us been sick constantly. The measles and whooping-cough 
went so hard with Sarah that we were quite anxious ou her account, 
but were much more alarmed on account of my wife, who was taken 
with bleeding at the lungs two or three days after the death of her 
child. She was pretty much confined to her bed for some weeks, and 
sufiiired a good deal of pain, but is now much more comfortable, and 
able to be around. About the time she got about I was taken with 
fever and ague, and am unable to do much now, but have got the 
shakes stopped for the present. The almost constant wet weather 
put us back very much about our crops, and prevented our getting in 
much corn. What we have is promising. Our wheat is a very good 
quality, but the crop is quite moderate. Our grass is good, and we 
have a good deal secured. We shall probably finish harvesting 
wheat to-day. Potatoes promise well. Sheep and cattle are doing 
well ; and I would most gladly be able to add that iu wisdom and 
good morals we are all improving. The boys have done remarkably 
well about the work ; I wish I could see them manifest an equal 
regard for their futui'e well-being. Bliuduess has happened to us in 
that which is of most importance. 

We are at a loss frir a reason that we do not hear a word from you. 
The friends arc well, so far as I know. Heard from Heury and liuth 
a few days since. 

Your afiectiouate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, Aug. 6, 1852. 
Dear son John, — I had just written a short letter to you, di- 
rected and sealed it, when I got youi s of the 1 st instant. I am glad 
to hear fi;om you again, and had been writing that I could not re 
member hearing anything from you since early last spring. I air 
pretty much laid up with the ague, and have been for more than a 
month. The family are about ..in their usual health. Your mother 
is not well, but is about the house at work. The other friends are 
well, so far as I know. After something of a drouth, the weather 
has become very unsteady ; yet we have not had a great amount of 
rain. We get a little so often that we progress slowly with our hay- 
ing, of which we have yet considerable to do ; we have also some 
late oats to cut. Have our wheat secured. Our corn we had to 
plant over once ; it now looks promising. The prospect for potatoes, 
since the rains have begun to come, is good. Our sheep and cattle 



1852.] FAMILY COUNSELS AKD HOME LIFE. 151 

are doing well; we think of taking some to Cleveland to show. 
Have not heard from Henry and Ruth since June 26, when they were 
well. Mr. Ely of Boston writes us that our trial there will come on 
about the 21st September, and that we must then be ready. He says 
Mr. Beebe had not returned from Europe July 24, but is expected 
this month. "We want you without fail to have your business so 
arranged that you can go on and be there by that date, as we cannot 
do without you at all. We have not yet sold our wool. I hope 
your corn and oats will recover ; ours that was blown down last year 
did in a good measure. 

One word in regard to the religious belief of yourself, and the ideas 
of several of my children. My affections are too deep-rooted to be 
alienated from them; but " my gray hairs must go down in sorrow 
to the grave" unless the true God forgive their denial and rejection 
of him, and open their eyes. I am perfectly conscious that their 
eyes are blinded to the real truth, their minds prejudiced by hearts 
unreconciled to their Maker and Judge ; and that they have no right 
appreciation of his true character, nor of their owti. ''A deceived 
heart hath turned them aside." That God in infinite mercy, for 
Christ's sake, may grant to you and Wealthy, and to my other chil- 
dren, " eyes to see," is the most earnest and constant prayer of 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 



Akron, Ohio, Aug. 10, 1852. 
Dear Ruth, — Your letter to mother and children is this day 
received. We are always glad to hear from you, and are much 
pleased with the numerous particulars your letters contain. I have 
had a return of the ague (rather severe), so that I am pretty much 
laid up, and not good for much anyway ; am now using means to 
break it up again. Your mother is still more or less troubled with 
her difficulties, but is able to keep about and accomplish a good deal. 
The remainder of the family (and friends, so f;ir as I know) are quite 
well. We are getting nearly through haying and harvest. Our hay 
crop is most abundant ; and we have lately had frequent little rains, 
which for the present relieves us from our fears of a terrible drouth. 
We are much rejoiced to learn that God in mercy has given you some 
precious showers. It is a great mercy to us that we frequently are 
made to understand most thoroughly our absolute dependence on a 
power quite above ourselves. How blessed are all whose hearts and 
conduct do not set them at variance with that power ! Wliy will not 
my family endeavor to secure his favor, and to effect in tlie one only 
way a perfect reconciliation % 



152 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1852. 

The cars have been running regularly from Akron to Cleveland 
since July 5, so that there is now steam conveyance from Akron to 
Westport. This is a great comfort, as it reduces the journey to such 
a tritliug affair. We are making a little preparation for the Ohio 
State Fair at Cleveland, on 15th, 10th, 17th September next, and 
think we shall exhibit some cattle and sheep. Mr. and Mrs. Per- 
kins have been away at New York for about three weeks. Mr. 
Perkins is away for a great part of the time. We are quite obliged 
to our friend Mrs. Dickson for remembering us ; are glad she is with 
you, and hope you will do a little towards making her home with you 
happy on our account, as we very much respect her, and feel quite an 
interest in her welfare. 

Our Oliver has been speculating for some months past in hogs. I 
think he will probably come out about even, and maybe get the inter- 
est of his money. Frederick manages the sheep mostly, and butchers 
mutton for the two families. Watson operates on the farm. Salmon 
is chief captain over the cows, calves, etc., and he has them all to 
shine. Jason and Owen appear to be getting along with their farm- 
ing middling well. The prospect now is that the potato crop will be 
full middling good. Annie and Sarah go to school. Annie has be- 
come a very correct reader. Sarah goes singing about as easy as an 
old shoe. Edward still continues in California. Father is carrying on 
his little farming on his own hook still, and seems to succeed very 
well. I am much gratified to have him able to do so, and he seems 
to enjoy it quite as much as ever he did.^ I have now written about 
all I can well think of for this time. 

Your affectionate father, John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, Sept. 21, 1852. 

Dear son John, — I now enclose five dollars to pay you for the 
expense of your trip to Cleveland as near as I can. I would have 
given you more at Cleveland had I met with Mr. Perkins in season 
after you concluded to leave. We will hereafter arrange about your 
time so as to make that satisfactory. We drew three second pre- 
miums at the fair, but no first premium. Our bull — by far the most 
extraordinary animal we have — got no premium at all. We heard 
a very strong expression of dissatisfaction with the award on Devon 
bulls from numerous strangers, as well as from many good judges of 
our acquaintance, before we left the ground. We received a first 
prenuum on a yearling buck, and he was the meanest sheep of four- 
teen that we exhibited ; we got no other premium on sheep. 

^ Owen Brown was now eighty-one years old. Edward was his youngest 
son. Sarah was John Brown's daughter, at this time six years old. 



1853.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LITE. 153 

Akron, Ohio, Sept. 24, 1852. 

Dear Children, — We received Ruth's letter of the 31st August 
a few days before our State fair at Cleveland, which came off on the 
15th, 16th, and 17th instant. John and myself expected to go from 
there to Boston, and John came on to Cleveland for that purpose ; 
but just then we learned tliat our trial would not come on until 
November next. I may leave to go on to Boston before November, 
but cannot say now. We got four premiums on cattle and sheep at 
the fair, — two of ten dollars each, one of fifteen dollars, and one of 
twenty-five dollars. The Perkinses were much pleased with the 
show of stock we had to make, but felt, as many others did, that 
great injustice was done in not giving us but one first premium, and 
that on our poorest buck exhibited. The premiums were paid in 
silver cups, goblets, etc., and are of little use, except for mere show. 
All the friends were well at the time of the fair, and a large portion 
of them on the show-ground, — father among the rest. It was sup- 
posed to be the greatest exhibition ever had in the Western States, far 
exceeding those of the State of New York ; but a vast majority of 
those who were at much pains and cost to exhibit their stock and 
other things went away disappointed of any premiums. This is a 
mortifying reflection. 

We are busy taking care of our potatoes and apples, and preparing 
to sow our grain. I liave had no shake of ague for some time, but 
am not strong. The family are in usual health. Write again. 
Your aflectiouate father, 

JoHJsr Brown. 

To his Wife. 

Boston, Mass., Jan. 16, 1853. 
Dear Wife, — I have the satisfaction to say that we have at last 
got to trial, and I now hope that a little more than another week will 
terminate it. Up to this time our prospects appear favorable. ... I 
have no word for the boys, except to say I am very glad to hear they 
are doing so well, and that every day increases my anxiety that they 
all will decide to be wise and good ; and I close by saying that such 
is by far my most earnest wish for you all. 

Your aflPectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

The Boston trial went badly, as we have seen in a former 
chapter, nor did the religious views of Brown's children ever 
square perfectly with his own. As years went forward he 



154 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1853. 

became less anxious on this point, and was more willing to 
leave tlie matter with Providence ; but his own opinions 
never changed. 

Akron, Ohio, Feb. 21, 1853. 

Dear Children, — It was my intention, on parting with John at 
Conneaut, to have written you soon; but as Mr. Perkins (imme- 
diately on my return home) expressed a strong desire to have me 
continue with him at least for another year, I have deferred it, in 
hopes from day to day of being able to say to you on what terms I 
am to remain. His being absent almost the whole time has pre- 
vented our making any definite bargain as yet, although we have 
talked considerably about it. Our bargain will not probably vary 
much from this, — namely, he to furnish hind, stock of all kinds, teams, 
and tools, pay taxes on lands, half the taxes on other property, and 
furnish half the salt ; I to furaish all the work, board the hands, pay 
half the taxes on personal property put in, half the interest on capital 
on stock, and half the insurance on same, and have half the proceeds 
of all grain and other crops raised, and of all the stock of cattle, 
sheep, hogs, etc. He seems so pleasant, and anxious to have me 
continue, that I cannot tear away from him. He is in quite as good 
spirits since he came home as I expected. 

We are all in good health ; so also was father and other Hudson 
friends a few days ago. Our sheep, cattle, etc., have done very vi'ell 
through the winter. Got a letter from Ruth a few days ago. All 
appears well with them. She writes that they have had quite a 
revival of religion there, and that Henry is one of the hopefully con- 
verted. My earnest and only wish is, that those seeming conversions 
may prove genuine, as I doubt not " there is joy over one sinner that 
repenteth." Will you write me °? 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, Sept. 24, 1853. 
Dear Children, — We received Henry's letter of the IGth August 
in due time, and when it came I intended to reply at once ; but not 
being very stout, and having many things to look after, it has been 
put off until now. We Were very glad of that letter, and of the 
information it gave of your health and prosperity, as well as your 
future calculations. We have some nice turkeys and chickens fatten- 
ing, to be ready by the time you come on to Akron. Father and 
Jason were both here this morning. Father is quite well. Jason, 
EUen, Owen, and Fred have all been having the ague more or less 



I 



.J 



1854.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 155 

since I wrote before. Other frieuds are iu usual health, I believe. 
We have done part of our sowing, got our fine crop of com all se- 
cured against frosts yesterday, and are digging potatoes to-day. The 
season has been thus far one of great temporal blessing ; and I would 
foin hope that the Spirit of God has not done striving iu our hard 
hearts. I sometimes feel encouraged to hope that my sons will give 
up their miserable delusions and believe iu God and in his Son "our 
Saviour. I think the family are more and more decided in favor of 
returning to Essex, and seem all disposed to be making little prei)a- 
rations for it as we suppose the time draws near. Our county fair 
comes off on the 12th and J 3th October, but we sujDpose we can 
hardly expect you so soon. Should be much pleased to have you 
here then. . . . 

Akron, Ohio, Jan. 25, 1854. 

Dear Children, — I remember I engaged to write you so soon as 
I had anything to tell worth the paper. I do not suppose the balance 
will be great now. So far as I know, the friends here are about in 
usual health, and are passing through the winter prosperously. My 
wife is not iu as good health as when you were here. Have not 
heard from Hudson for some days. The loss of sheep has been merely 
a nominal one with us. We have skinned two full-blood Devon 
heifers, — from the effects of poison, as we suspect ; for several of our 
young cattle were taken sick about the same time. The others appear 
to be nearly well. 

This world is not yet freed from real malice or envy. It appears 
to be well settled now that we go back to North Elba in the spring, 
I have had a good-natured talk with Mr. Perkins about going away, 
and both families are now prepaiing to carry out that plan. I do 
not yet know what his intentions are about our compensation for the 
last year.^ Will write you when I do, as I want you to hold yourself 
(John, I mean) in readiness to come out at once, should he decide to 
give me a share of the stock, etc. Should that be the case, I intend 
to let you have what will give you a little start in the way of red 
cattle. 

I learn, by your letters to others of the family, that you have pretty 
much decided to call your boy John, and that in order to gratify tho 
feelings of his great-grandfother and grandfi^ther. I will only now 
say that I hope to be able sometime to convince you that I appreciate 
the sacrifices you may make to accommodate our feelings. I noticed 

1 By referrins: to a previous letter of Feb. 21, 1853, it will be seen that 
Mr. Perkins's mind had changed within the year. It has been intimated 
that political opinipns had something to do with this change. 



156 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOKN BROWN. [1854. 

your remark about the family settling near each other; to this I 
would say, I would like to have my posterity near enough to each 
other to be friendly, but would never wish them to be brought so in 
contact as to be near neighbors or to intermarry. I may possibly 
write you again very soon. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, Feb. 9, 1854. 

Dear son John, — I write by direction of Mr. Perkins to ask you 
to come out immediately to assist him, instead of Mr. Newton, in 
closing up my accounts. He has seen the above, and it is a thing of 
his own naming ; so I want you, if possible, to come right away. 
He has told me he intends to give me one share, but would like to 
have the stock mostly. We are on excellent terms, so far as I know. 
All well except my wife, and I hope she will soon be better. 
Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, Feb. 24, 1854. 
Dear son John, — Since writing you before, I have agreed to go 
on to the Ward place for one year, as I found I could not dispose of 
my stuff in time to go to North Elba without great sacrifice this 
spring. We expect to move the first of next week, and do not wish 
you to come on until we get more settled and write you again. As I 
am not going away immediately, there will be no particular hurry 
about the settlement I wrote about before. On reckoning up our 
expenses for the past year, we find we have been quite prosperous. I 
have sold my interest in the increase of sheep to Mr. Perkins for 
about $700, in hogs for $51, in wheat on the ground for $176. These 
will pay our expenses for the year past, and the next year's rent for 
the Ward place, Crinlen place, and Old Portage place. These places 
I get for one year in exchange for my interest in wheat on the 
ground ; and it leaves me half the wool of last season (which is on 
hand yet), half the pork, corn, wheat, oats, hay, potatoes, and 
calves sixteen in number. If I could have sold my share of the wool, 
I might have gone to Essex this spring quite comfortably; but I 
have to pay Henry $100 before he leaves, and I cannot do that and 
have sufBcient to move with until I can sell my wool. We are all 
middling well. Henry and Ruth intend to leave for home about the 
I5th March, and to go by your place if they can. We have great 
reason to be thankful that we have had so prosperous a year, and 
have terminated our connection with Mr. Perkins so comfortably and 



1854.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 157 

on such friendly terms, to all appearance. PeiTy Warren, to whom 
Henry Warren conveyed his property, was here a few days ago, feel- 
ing about for a compromise ; did nothing, and left, to return again 
soon as he said. We think they are getting tired of the five years' 
war. I shall probably write you again before a great while. 
Your aflectiouate father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, April 3, 1854. 
Dear son John, — We received your letter of the 24th March two 
or three days since, and one from Henry, dated 25th March, about the 
same time. They had got on well so far, but had to go by stage the 
balance of the way. Father got home well, and was with us over 
night Friday last. We have all been middling well of late, but very 
busy, having had the care of the whole concern at Mr. Perkins's place 
until Friday night. I had a most comfortable time settling last year's 
business, and dividing with Mr. Perkins, and have to say of his deal- 
ing with me that he has shown himself to be every incli a gentle- 
man. I bring to my new home five of the red cows and ten calves ; 
he to have $100 out of my share of the last year's wool, to make us 
even on last year's business ; after dividing all crops, he paying me 
in hand $28.55, balance due me on all except four of the five cows. 
I am going now to work with a cheap team of two yoke oxen, on 
which I am indebted, till I can sell my wool, $89 ; $46 I have paid 
towards them. I would like to have all my children settle within a 
few miles of each other and of me, but I cannot take the responsibil- 
ity of advising you to make swy forced move to change your location. 
Thousands have to regret that they did not let middling " well alone." 
I should think you ought to get for your place another $125; and 
I think you may, if you are not too anxious. That would buy you 
considerable of a farm in Essex or elsewhere, and we may get the 
Homestead Law passed yet. It has been a question with me whether 
you would not do better to hire all your team work done than to have 
your little place overstocked possibly, after some trouble about buy- 
ing them, paying taxes, insurance, and some expense for implements 
to use them with. If you get a little overstoclied, everything will 
seem to do poorly. Frederick is very much better, but both he and 
Owen have been having the ague lately. They leave the Hill farm 
soon. I do not at this moment know of a good opening for you this 
way. One thing I do not fear to advise and even urge ; and that is 
the habitual " fear of the Lord, which is tlie beginning of wisdom." 
Commending you all to his mercy, I remain 

Your afi'ectionate father, 

John Brown. 



158 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1854. 

Akron, Ohio, Aug. 24, 1854. 

Dear Children, — I have just received Henry's letter of the 
13th instaut, aud have much reasou to he thankful for the good news 
it brings. We are all in middling health, so far as I know, in this 
quarter, although there is some si(;kuess about us. Motlier Brown, 
of Hudson, was complaining some last week ; have not heard from 
her since then. This part of the country is suffering the most dread- 
ful drouth ever experienced during this nineteenth century. We 
have been much more highly favored than most of our neighbors in 
that we were enabled to secure a most excellent hay crop, whilst 
many others did not get theirs saved in time, and lost it notwith- 
standing the dry weather. Our oats are no better than those of our 
neighbors, but we have a few. We shall probably have some corn, 
while others, to a great extent, will have none. Of garden vegetables 
we have more than twenty poor families have in many cases. Of 
fruit we shall have a comfortable supply, if our less favored neigh- 
bors do not take it all from us. We ought to be willing to divide. 
Our cattle (of whicli we have thirty-three head) we are enabled to 
keep in excellent condition, on the little feed that grows on the moist 
grounds, and by feeding the stalks green that have failed of corn, — 
and we have a good many of them. W^e have had two light frosts, 
on August the 9th and 18th, but have had more extreme hot 
weather in July and August than ever known before, — thermometer 
often up to 98° in the shade, and was so yesterday ; it now stands 
(eleven o'clock p. M.) at 93°. 

I am thinking that it may be best for us to dispose of all the cattle 
we want to sell, and of all our winter feed, and move a few choice 
cattle to North Elba this fall, provided we can there buy hay and 
other stuff considerably cheaper than we might sell our stuff for here, 
and also provided we can get a comfortable house to winter in. I 
want you to keep writing me often, as you can learn how hay, all 
kinds of grain, and roots can be bought with you, so that I may be the 
better able to judge. Our last year's pork proves to be a most per- 
fect article, but I think not best to ship any until the weather gets a 
little cooler. The price Mr. Washburn asks for his contract may not 
be much out of the way, but there seems to be some difficulty about 
a bargain yet. First, he wants to hang on all his stock, and I do not 
know at present as I want any of them. I do not know what he has 
on hand ; he may perhaps be able to get theiu off himself. Then, 
again, I do not know as j\Ir. Smith ^ would give a deed of half the lot 
before the whole purchase-money for the entire lot and interest are 
paid. You may have further information than I have. Early in 

1 Genit Smith, who still owned much land at North Elba. 



1854.] FAMILY COUNSELS AND HOME LIFE. 159 

the season all kinds of cattle were liigh, scarce and ready cash; 
now, as the prospects are, I am enthely unable to make an estimate 
of what money I can realize on them, so as to be able to say just now 
how much money I can raise, provided those other impediments can 
be got over. I intend to turn all I consistently can into money, and 
as fast as I can, and would be glad to secure the purchase of Wash- 
burn, if it can be done consistently and without too much trouble. 
Write me again soon, and advise as far as you can about all these 
matters. We could probably sell all our produce at pretty high 
prices. How are cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs selling in your 
quarter ? 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

These family letters, full of repetitions, of petty concerns, 
of old-fashioned forms of expression, and with their whim- 
sical mixture- of important and unimportant affairs, have a 
value, in exhibiting the true character of John Brown, that 
more elaborate epistles, elegantly written with an eye to 
the public, could not possibly hold. Like the rude verses 
of Lucilius, they paint the whole life of the old man ; but 
they were -Cvritten, unlike the Roman verses, without the 
least thought of publication. The later letters of the series 
— written five years before he engaged in his Virginia 
campaign, which Colonel Perkins thought so foolish — 
point to the final separation between these two unequally 
yoked partners. They had worked together, each in his own 
way, for more than ten years ; and they parted amicably, 
though with some after-thoughts w^hich hindered them from 
ever uniting in sentiment again. At this time the sons of 
Brown were beginning to look towards Kansas as a place for 
their husbandry ; and we shall see in the next chapter why 
its open territory attracted them. 



160 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1784. 



CHAPTER VII. 

KANSAS, THE SKIRMISH-GROUND OF THE CIVIL WAR. 

HP HE State of Kansas, which gave John Brown his first 
^ distinction, occupies territory with which the names of 
other famous men are associated, though with none is it 
more closely connected than with his. The first of Euro- 
peans to visit Kansas was Vasquez de Coronado, a Spanish 
captain, who in 1541-42 reached its southern and western 
counties, coming up from Mexico in search of gold, silver, 
and fabulous cities. He called the land " Quivira," and de- 
scribed it as "the best possible soil for all kinds of Spanish 
productions, very strong and black, and well watered by 
brooks, springs, and rivers ; " but in reaching it from Mex- 
ico he marched nine hundred and fifty leagues, and traversed 
" mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome, 
and bare of wood." These plains he found " all the way 
as full of crook-back oxen [buffaloes] as the mountain Serena 
in Spain is full of sheep." At this very time De Soto was 
discovering the river Mississippi ; but neither he nor Father 
Marquette, one hundred and thirty years later, set foot in 
Kansas. La Salle, in 1687, might have crossed it, on his way 
from Texas to Canada, if he had not fallen by the hand of 
mutiny ; but the first Frenchman to explore it was Dutisne, 
in 1719, who, in travelling westward from the Osage River, 
may have crossed the Pottawatomie near where John Brown 
afterward labored and fought. It was then and long after a 
jjart of the French king's broad colony of Louisiana, and as 
such was ceded by Napoleon to Jefferson in 1802. Nearly 
twenty years before this, in 1784, Jefferson had undertaken 
to free the whole northwestern territory of the United States 
from the curse of slavery, by what has since been known 
as the Ordinance of 1787. As drawn by Jefferson in 1784, 



i 



I 



1820.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 161 

this great charter of Western freedom provided that all new 
States to be carved out of the national domain should in 
their governments uphold republican forms, " and after the 
year 1800 of the Christian era there shall be neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude in any of them." This was de- 
feated by a single vote in Congress, much to Jefferson's 
disgust. In 1786 he said : " The voice of a single individual 
would have prevented this abominable crime [the introduc- 
tion of slavery into new territory]. Heaven will not always 
be silent ; the friends to the rights of human nature will in 
the end prevail." They did prevail in John Brown's time, 
and largely through his heroism ; and in the conflict Kansas 
became the skirmish-line of our Civil War. 

After the cession of Louisiana, which brought with it to 
the United States all the region then known as "the Mis- 
souri territory," including Kansas, the latter was again de- 
clared free soil by the Missouri Compromise of 1820 ; ^ for 
it was then enacted by Congress (March 6, 1820), when 
erecting Missouri into a State, — 

" That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, 
under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of 36° 30' north lati- 
tude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this 
act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punish- 
ment of crimes, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited." 

It was in the face of this solemn declaration that the 
slaveholders of 1854-56 undertook to establish slavery by 

1 The Missouri Compromise — as Charles Sumner said in his great speech 
of May 19 and 20, 1856, "The Crime against Kansas" — was the work of 
slaveholders, who insisted that Missouri should come into the Union as a 
slave State, but for this concession were willing to give up all the Northern 
territory to freedom. Sumner says : "It was hailed by slaveholders as a 
victory. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, in an oft-quoted letter 
written at eight o'clock on the night of its passage, says: ' It is considered 
here by the slaveholding States as a great triumph.' At the North it was 
accepted as a defeat, and the friends of freedom everywhere throughout the 
country bowed their heads with mortification." The cliief advocates of this 
compromise were William Pinkney, of Maryland, and Henry Clay, of Ken- 
tucky ; among the chief advocates of excluding slavery from Missouri were 
Eufus King, then of New York, and Harrison Gray Otis, a nephew of the 
Revolutionary orator James Otis, of Massachusetts. 

11 



162 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BROWN. [1820. 

force and by fraud in Kansas. As a preliminary, they had 
carried through Congress, under the lead of Senator Douglas 
of Illinois, what was known as the " squatter sovereignty " 
clause of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, — leaving the people at 
each election to determine the existence of slavery for them- 
selves. This plausible form of words covered a purpose on 
the part of the South to fasten slavery upon the new States, 
which Jefferson had striven to free from the possibility of 
such a misfortune ; and when the prairies of Kansas were 
opened to settlement in 1854, this purpose became offensively 
manifest. Indeed, there could be no doubt why Douglas had 
introduced his bill, or what was the intention of the Demo- 
cratic administration under Franklin Pierce of New Hamp- 
shire, and of the presidential candidates, including Douglas, 
who hoped to succeed Pierce in office. A new slave State 
was wanted, since California had excluded slavery, and there 
were one or two Northern Territories likely soon to come in 
as States with slavery also excluded. By this time the 
Southern slaveholders, abandoning the early doctrine of 
Washington, Jefferson, George IVIason, Madison, and Mar- 
shall, and even the cautious ground that Clay and Pinckney 
held in 1820, were thirsting to extend the area of their de- 
testable institution. They had annexed Texas and made 
war on Mexico for this purpose ; and they were seeking to 
deprive Spain of Cuba, and conquer San Domingo, in order 
to re-establish slavery where it first cursed Spanish America, 
and to carry on the slave-trade openly once more. The 
prediction made by Taylor of New York, in opposing the 
Missouri Compromise, had been singularly verified. Taylor 
said to the slaveholders in 1820 : — 

" On ail implied power to acquire territory by treaty, you raise an 
implied right to erect it into States, and imply a compromise by which 
slavery is to be established and slaves represented in Congress. Is 
this just? Is it fair? Where will it end ? . . . Your lust of acquir- 
ing is not yet satiated. You must have the Floridas. Your ambition 
rises. You covet Cuba, and obtain it ; you stretch your arms to the 
other islands in tlie Gulf (if Mexico, and tliey become yours. Are the 
iiiillious of slaves inhabitiug those countries to be incorporated iuto 
the Union and nspresfnited in Couti^ress ? Are the freemen of the old 
States to become the slaves of the representations of foreign slaves ? " 



i 



1854.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 163 

Such was, indeed, the dream of South Carolina and Mis- 
sissippi and Louisiana ; such the purpose of Jefferson Davis, 
Soule of New Orleans, and Mason of Virginia, — a degenerate 
descendant of Washington's friend George Mason. "Mani- 
fest Destiny " was the watchword of these politicians, to 
whom the Northern Democrats — Pierce, Buchanan, Cass, 
and Douglas — basely submitted. As the discussion on 
Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska bill proceeded, it became evi- 
dent, from the very nature of tjje case, that there was a 
purpose to force slavery into Kansas, the more southern 
Territory of the two. There would have been no need 
of repealing the Missouri Compromise except to carry out 
this purpose. It was also evident that the great mass of 
Northern and European emigration would turn away from 
Kansas if it became probable that slavery would enter there. 
" No single man or single family unwilling to enter a slave 
State would trust themselves, unsupported, in a Territory 
which would probably become one," said Edward Hale in 
1854, speaking as the organ of the Massachusetts Emigrant 
Aid Company, which Eli Thayer, Dr. Howe, Richard Hil- 
dreth, and other antislavery men of Boston and Worcester 
had joined with Mr. Hale, then a clergyman of Worcester, 
to organize, but which in its management soon fell into the 
hands of men like Amos A. Lawrence, Judge Chapman of 
Springfield, and others who were not considered fanatical 
against slavery. Mr. Hale further said : ^ — 

'' Meanwhile a rapid emigration has heen going on into the Terri- 
tories, particularly into Kansas, quite independent of the Emigrant 
Aid Companies. During the close of the winter of 1853-54, it is 
said, large numhers of persons from Northwestern States collected in 
the towns on the eastern side of the Missouri, awaiting the opening of 
the Territories, that they might go in and stake out their locations. As 
the spring opened, a rapid current of emigration began. At first the 
Northern settlers went generally into Nebraska ; but so soon as it was 
known that determined and combined arrangements would be made to 
settle Kansas from the North, the natural attractions of that Territory 
began to exercise their influence, and the preponderance of emigration 

^ See "Kansas and Nebraska," by Edward E. Hale (Boston : Phillips, 
Sampson, & Co., 1854), — a very useful book at the time. The passage 
cited is at pp. 233, 234. 



164 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1854. 

through the siiinincr of 1854 has been into its bonlors. The Indian 
troatios were ratified only at the close of the session of the Senate ; 
some of them not till the beginning of Angust. Settlement on the 
Indian lands was therefore, nntil that time, strictly illegal. But per- 
sons intending to emigrate, in many instances, made arrangements 
with the Indians, or, at the least, staked off the Lmd on which they 
wished to settle, and made registry of the priority of their claim 
on the books of some ' Sqnatters' Association.' A large number of 
the residents of Western Missouri have in this manner passed over 
the line, and made claim to such sections as pleased them, intending, 
at some subsequent period, to make such improvements as will give 
them a right of pre-emjition, when tlw^ lands are oti'ered for sale, but 
for tlie present not residing in tlie new Territtiry." 

Some of these last-named persons were actually intending 
to settle in Kansas ; but most of them were either land-specu- 
lators or slavery-propagandists, who meant to make Kansas 
a slave State, whether they lived there or not. The acting 
Vice-l'resident of the United States, David R. Atchison, of 
Western Missouri, whose name, along with that of Presi- 
dent Pierce, is sigited to the Kansas-Nebraska law (May 30, 
1854), five months afterwards made a speech in the county 
of Platte, in which he said : — 

" Tlie people of Kansas in their first elections will decide the ques- 
tion wlietlier or not slaveholders are to be excluded. Now, if a set 
of fanatics and diMnagognes a thousand miles off [meaning Messrs. 
Lawrence, Chapman, John Carter Hrown, etc.] can aH'ord to ad- 
vance their money and exert every nerve to abnlitioTiize Kansas and 
exclude the slaveholder, what is your duty, when you reside within 
one day's journey of the Territory, and when your peace, quiet, and 
property depend on your action? Yon can, without an exertiim, 
send five hundred of your young men who will vote in favor of your 
institutions. Should each county in the State of Missouri only do its 
duty, the question will be decided quietly and peaceably at the 
ballot-box." 

This was the advice of Vice-President Atchison, — much 
of the same character as if Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, 
who has honored the place that Atcliison disgraced, should 
advise the citizens of Northern Vermont to march over into 
Canada and vote at the elections there. A Vermonter has 
now as much right to vote in Sherbrooke or Montreal as a 



1855.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 165 

Missourian in 1854 had to vote in Leavenworth or Law- 
rence ; and this was practically admitted by a confederate 
of Atchison, General Stringfellow, of Missouri, who said 
in 1855 : — 

" To those who have qualms of conscience as to violating laws, 
State or national, I say the time has come when such impositions 
must be disregarded, since your rights and property are in danger. 
And I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in 
Kansas in defiance of Reeder and his vile myrmidons, and vote at 
tlie point of the bowie-knife and revolver. Neither give nor take 
quarter: our cause demands it. It is enough that the slaveholding 
interest wills it, from which tliere is no appeal." 

They acted on this advice, as appears by another speech 
of Atchison after the first invasion : — 

" Well, what next? Why, an election for members of the Legis- 
lature to organize the Territory must be held. What did I advise 
you to do then? Why, meet them on their own ground, and beat 
them at their own game again ; and, cold and inclement as the 
vi^eather was, I went over with a company of men. My object in 
going was not to vote. I had no right to vote, unless I had dis- 
franchised myself in Missouri. I was not within two miles of a 
voting place. My object in going was not to vote, but to settle a 
difficulty between two of our candidates. The Abolitionists of the 
North said, and published it abroad, that Atchison was there ivith 
bowie-knife and revolver, — and, by God, H ivas true ! I never did 
go into that Territory, I never intend to go into that Territory, 
without being prepared for all such kind of cattle.^'' 

The whole South, and particularly South Carolina, Geor- 
gia, and Alabama, were urged to send men into Kansas, as 
Atchison and StringfelloAV urged the Missourians to go in, — 
law or no law, — to secure the triumph of slavery. String- 
fellow wrote to the " Montgomery Advertiser " (published 
at the town in Alabama where the Southern Confederacy 
first established its seat of government in 1861) : " Not 
only is it profitable for slaveholders to go to Kansas, but 
politically it is all-important." A South Carolina youth, 
Warren Wilkes by name, who commanded for a while an 
armed force of Carolina and Georgia settlers in Kansas, 



166 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

wrote to the " Charleston Mercury," of South Caroliua, 
in the spring of 1856 : — 

'' By conseut of parties, the present contest in Kansas is made the 
turning-poiut in the destinies of slavery and abohtionism. If the 
South triumphs, abohtionism will be defeated and shorn of its power 
for all time. If she is defeated, abolitionism will grow more insolent 
and aggressive, until the utter ruin of the South is consummated. If 
the South secures Kansas, she will extend slavery into all territory 
south of the fortieth parallel of north latitude, to the Rio Grande; 
and this, of course, will secure for her pent-up institution of slavery 
an ample outlet, and restore her power in Congress. If the North 
secures Kansas, the power of the South in Congress will be gradually 
diminished, and the slave population will become valueless. AU 
depends upon the action of the present moment." 

To this reasoning men like John Brown assented, and 
were ready to join issue for the control of Kansas upon this 
ground alone. But Brown had another and quite different 
object in view ; he meant to attack slavery by force, in the 
States themselves, and to destroy it, as it was finally de- 
stroyed, by the Aveapons and influences of war. 

What, then, was the slavery which South Carolina wished 
to establish in Kansas and all over the jSTorth, and upon 
what grounds was it advocated ? It is hard, at this distance 
of time and in the complete change of circumstances that 
the Civil War has produced, to show another person or make 
real to one's self the despotism which a few slaveholders ex- 
ercised in 1856 over the rest of mankind in this country. 
Though a meagre minority in their own South, they abso- 
lutely controlled there not only four millions of slaves, but 
six millions of white people, nominally free, while they 
directed the policy and the opinions of more than half the 
free people of the non-slaveholding States. They dictated 
the nomination and secured the election of Pierce and after- 
ward of Buchanan as President, — the most humble ser- 
vants of the slave-power who ever held that office ; they had 
not only refused to terminate the slave-trade (as by treaty 
we were bound to assist in doing), but they had induced the 
importation of a few cargoes of slaves into Carolina and 
Georgia ; they had not only broken down the Missouri 



{ 



1857.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 167 

Compromise of 1820 (imposed by themselves on the un- 
willing jSTorth), but had done their best to extend slavery 
over the new Territories of the nation, and to legalize its 
existence in all the free States. Through the mouth of 
Chief- Justice Taney, who simply uttered the decrees of the 
slaveholding oligarchy, they were soon to make the Supreme 
Court of the nation declare virtually, if not in set terms, 
that four million Americans, of African descent, had prac- 
tically " no rights which a white man was bound to re- 
spect ; " and they were exerting themselves in advance in 
every way to give effect to that foregone conclusion. The 
Dred Scott decision was not made by Taney until 1857, 
when it led at once to the execution of John Brown's long- 
cherished purpose of striking a blow at slavery in its own 
Virginian stronghold. That decision flashed into the minds 
of Korthern men the conviction which Brown held and John 
Quincy Adams had long before formulated and expressed, — 
that " the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of 
slavery was the vital and animating spirit of the National 
Government." It was this conviction that led to the elec- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, as it had led John Brown 
and his small band of followers to assert freedom by force in 
Kansas. 

At the time when the young South Carolinian wrote the 
words above-cited, his State was an oligarchy founded upon 
negro slavery, and its State Constitution provided that a 
citizen should not " be eligible to a seat in the House of Eep- 
resentatives unless legally seized and possessed in his own 
right of a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of 
laud and ten negroes." A few years earlier, Chancellor 
Harper, of South Carolina, in an address before a Society 
for the Advancement of Learning, at Charleston, made 
these statements, which were cited by J. B. De Bow, a Lou- 
isiana writer, in 1852 : — 

" The institution of slavery is a 2^'>"incipal cause of civilization. It 
is as much the tn-der of nature that men should enslave each other as 
tliat otlier animals should prey upon each other. The African slave- 
trade has given the boon of existence to millions and millions in our 
country who would otherwise never have enjoyed it. It is true that 
the slave is driven to his labor by stripes. Such punishment would 



168 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1852. 

be degrading to a free man, who had the thoughts and as})irations of 
a freeman. In general, it is not degrading to a slave, nor is it felt to 
be so. Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its 
forbidding the elements of education to be comuiunicated to slaves. 
But, in truth, what injury is done them by this ? He who works 
during the day with his hands does not read in intervals of leisure for 
his amusement or the improvement of his mind. A knowledge of 
reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic is convenient and 
iuij)ortant to the free laborer, but of what use would they be to the 
sla\e ? Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox by giving him a 
cultivated understanding or fine feelings f The law has not i)rovided 
for making the man'iages of slaves indissoluble, nor could it do so- 
It may perhaps be said that the chastity of wives is not protected by 
law. It is true that the passions of the men of the superior caste 
tempt and find gratifl(;ation in the easy chastity of the female slave. 
But she is not a less useful member of society than before. She has 
done no great injury to herself or any other human being ; her off- 
spring is not a burden, but an acquisition to her owner ; his support is 
provided for, and he is bi'ought up to usefulness. If the fruit of in- 
tercourse with a free man, his condition is perhaps raised somewhat 
above that of his mother. I am asked. How can that institution be 
tolerable, by which a large class of society is cut ofl' from improve- 
ment and knowledge, to whom blows are not degrading, theft no 
mcire than a fault, falsehood and the want of chastity almost venial; 
and in which a husband or parent looks with comparative indifference 
on that which to a freeman would be the dishonor of wife or child ? 
But why not, if it produce the greatest aggregate of good f Sin and 
ignorance are only evil because they lead to misery.'''' 

Except for these utterances of shame and guilt, the name 
of Chancellor Harper is now forgotten. But the name of 
Jefferson remains in honor, and rises higher with each 
succeeding year which, by the lapse of time, converts him 
from a statesman into a prophet. A hundred years ago 
(May 10, 1785), the printers in Paris finished Jefferson's 
" Notes on Virginia," which he at once sent to his most inti- 
]nate friends and disciples in America, Madison and Monroe, 
who afterwards succeeded him in the Presidency. In trans- 
mitting the little book, he wrote to Madison : '' I wish to 
put it into the hands of the young men at the college, as 
well on account of the political as physical parts ; but there 
are sentiments on some subjects which might be displeasing 



1 



1782.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 169 

to the country, perhaps to the Assembly, or to some who lead 
it. I do not wish to be exposed to their censure, nor do I 
know how far their influence, if exerted, might effect a mis- 
apjjlication of law to such a publication, were it made. If you 
think it will give no offence, I will send a copy to each of 
the students of William and Mary College, and some others 
to my friends and to your disposal." ^ Being informed that 
he might send them to his Virginia friends Avithout risk 
of censure, Jefferson did so. The eighteenth chapter, or 
" Query," contains these often-quoted words, written at 
Monticello in 1782 : — 

" There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners 
of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The 
whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of 
the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the 
one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see 
this, and learn to imitate it ; for man is an imitative animal. If a 
parent could find no motive, either in his philanthropy or his self-love, 
for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should 
always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it 
is not sufficient. The parent storms ; the child looks on, catches the 
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller 
slaves, gives a loose rein to his worst passions, and thus nursed, 
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by 
it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can 
retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. 
And with what execration should that statesman be loaded who, per- 
mitting one half the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, 
transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the 
morals of the one part and the amor patricE of the other? For if a 

1 It appears by a letter from Monroe to Jefferson (New York, Jan. 19, 
1786), that it was what he had said of the Indians of Virginia, rather than 
his attack upon negro slavery, \\hich Jefferson feared might not be well re- 
ceived in his native State, —he loved to call it his "country." Monroe 
thanks Jefferson for the book, "which I have read with pleasure and im- 
provement," and then says : " I should suppose the observations you have 
made on the subjects you allude to would have a very favorable effect, since 
no considerations would induce them but a love for the rights of Indians and 
for your country." It would seem that the passage concerning slavery gave 
no offence, but the eloquent speech of Logan did ; and in 1797, while Jef- 
ferson was Vice-President, he felt compelled to give chapter and verse for 
the incidents of that W(^rld-famous affair of Logan and Cresap. 



n 



170 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1782. 

slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in pref- 
erence to that in which he is born to live and labor for another ; in 
which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far 
as depends on his individual endeavors, to the evanishment of the 
human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless 
generations proceeding from him.^ With the morals of the people 
their industry is also destroyed ; for in a warm climate no man will 
labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so 
true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed 
are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be deemed 
secure when we have removed their only firm basis, — a conviction 
in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God, 
that they are not to be violated without his wrath ? Indeed, I trem- 
ble for my country [Virginia] when I reflect that God is just j that 
His justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, 
and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune is among 
possible events ; that it may become probable by supernatural inter- 
ference. The Almighty has no attribute that can take sides with us 
in such a contest." 

After this generous outburst of indignation against what 
he saw everywhere about him in Virginia, Jefferson added, 
with that wise optimism which was so strong a feature in 
his character : " I think a change already perceptible since 
the origin of the present Eevolution. The spirit of the mas- 
ter is abating ; that of the slave is rising from the dust, his 
condition is mollifying ; the way, I hope, preparing under 
the auspices of Heaven for a total emancipation ; and that 
this is disposed, in the order of events, to be unth the consent 
of the masters rather tlian by their extirpation.''^ This pre- 
diction was fulfilled within half a century from Jefferson's 
death, though not in the way he had conceived, and not with- 
out that manifestation of God's awakened justice, at the 
thought of which the true Virginian trembled for Virginia. 
Kansas, a part of the vast region which Jefferson had wrested 
from Spain and France and devoted to liberty, was to be the 
first theatre of God's judgments ; and John Brown, Jeffer- 

1 Sole estate his sire beiiueathed 
(Hapless sire to hapless son), 
Was tlie wailing song he breatlied, 
And his chain when life was done. 

Emerson, Voluntaries. 



1854.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 171 

son's most radical disciple, who went even beyond his master 
in devotion to freedom, was that servant of the Lord who 
most clearly comprehended and fulfilled the divine purpose, 
whether in Kansas or A^irginia. This the heart of the people 
instinctively recognized from the first, and to this even his 
enemies have borne witness. One of the most garrulous of 
these enemies (though formerly professing to be Brown's 
friend), Charles Robinson of Kansas, wrote thus to a true 
friend of Brown, James Hanway, in February, 1878, con- 
cerning one of the Kansas hero's most debated deeds : ^' I 
never had much doubt that Captain Brown was the author 
of the blow at Pottawatomie, for the reason that he ivas 
the only man tvho comprehended the situation and saiv the 
absolute necessity of some such blow, and had the nerve to 
strike it." 

The condition of affairs in Kansas when John Brown 
appeared there, in October, 1855, had become such that no 
milder measures than he adopted would meet the exigency. 
The advice given by Atchison and the leaders of the slave 
oligarchy all over the South had been followed, and had 
borne fruit accordingly. The first of many Territorial gov- 
ernors of Kansas, a Pennsylvania Democrat, Andrew H. 
Eeeder by name, reached Leavenworth in October, 1854, 
and established his office temporarily there. He ordered an 
election for delegate to Congress, Nov, 29, 1854, at which 
hundreds of Missourians voted, casting, with other pro- 
slavery men, 2,258 votes for Whitfield, the proslavery can- 
didate, out of 2,905 votes thrown. On the 28th of February, 
1855, a census of the voters was completed by Governor 
Eeeder, and the number declared to be 2,905, the whole num- 
ber of inhabitants in eighteen election districts being then 
8,501. The most important election, that for members of 
the Territorial Legislature, was appointed for March 30, 
1855, at which time the genuine population could not have 
exceeded ten thousand, nor could there have been more than 
three thousand legal voters in Kansas. Yet the vote actu- 
ally counted was 6,307, of which no less than 5,427 were for 
the proslavery candidates. Not less than four thousand of 
these were fraudulent votes. A writer, whose home was in 
Lawrence at the time, says that for some days before 



172 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

the election crowds of men began to assemble at certain 
rendezvous on the border counties of Missouri, — " rough, 
brutal-looking men, of most nondescript appearance," but all 
wearing the proslavery badge, — a white or blue ribbon. 
Many Missourians who did not or could not join these voting 
excursions gave money or provisions or lent their wagons to 
help on the expedition. At St. Joseph, near the Missouri 
border, Stringfellow made the speech already quoted, in 
which he also said, according to the " Leavenworth Herald," 
a proslavery newspaper : " I tell you to mark every scoun- 
drel among you that is the least tainted with free-soilism or 
abolitionism, and exterminate him. Neither give nor take 

quarter from the d d rascals. I propose to mark them 

in this house and on the pi-esent occasion, so you may crush 
them out." This phrase, " Neither give nor take quarter," 
became the watchword of the Border Ruffians, as these in- 
vaders were fitly called. Provisions were sent before these 
parties ; and those intended for use at Lawrence were stored 
in the house of one Lykins, for whose kinsman a county had 
been named. The polls were also opened at his house. Some 
of these Lawrence voters came in from Missouri the even- 
ing before election, pitched tents near Lawrence, and held a 
meeting that night, in Avhich Colonel Young, of Boone County, 
Mo., declared " that more voters were here than would be 
needed to carry the election," but that there was a scarcity 
at Tecumseh, Bloomington, Hickory Point, and other places 
eight, ten. and twelve miles distant. Volunteers came for- 
ward for those elections, and the next morning left Lawrence 
to vote there. The village of Lawrence, then containing a 
few hundred persons, was entered March 30, 1855, by about 
a thousand men, under the command of Colonel Young 
and of a distinguished Missourian, Claiborne F. Jackson. 
They came in about a hundred wagons and on horseback, 
with music and banners ; armed with guns, pistols, rifles, 
and bowie-knives. They brought also two cannon loaded 
with musket balls, but had no occasion to use them, for 
the Lawrence people submitted quietly to this outrage. 
Colonel Y'oung did not send off any of his armed volunteers 
to other points until he was satisfied, as he said, tliat " the 
citizens of Lawrence were not going to offer any resistance " 



1855.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 173 

to their voting." Mrs. Charles Kobinson, who published a 
volume about Kansas in 1856, says, what is confirmed by 
the testimony taken by the Congressional Committee of 
1856 : 1 — 

'' When this band of men were coming to Lawrence, they met Mr. 
N. B. Blauton, formerly of Missouri, who had been appointed one of 
the judges of election by Governor Eeeder. Upon his saying that he 
should feel bound, in executing the duties of his oiBce, to demand the 
oath as to residence in the Territory, they attempted, by bribes first 
and then with threats of hanging, to mduce him to receive their votes 
without the oath. Mr. Blanton not appearing on the election day, 
a new judge, by name Robert A. Cummins, who claimed that a man 
had a right to vote if he had been in the Territory but an hour was 
appointed in his place. The Missourians came to the polls from the 
second ravine west of the town, where they were encamped in tents 
in parties of one hundred at a time. Before the voting commenced 
however, they said that * if the judges appointed by the governor did 
not allow them to vote, they would appoint judges who would,' 
They did so in the case of Mr. Abbott, one of the judges, who had 
become indignant, and resigned. The immediate occasion was Colo- 
nel Young's refusing to take the oath that he was a resident of Kan- 
sas. When asked by Mr. Abbott ' if he intended to make Kansas 
his future home,' he replied tliat ' it was none of his business ; ' that 
' if he was a resident there, he should ask no more.' Colonel Young 
then mounted on the window-sill, telling the crowd ' he had voted 
and they could do the same.' He told the judges ' it was no use 
swearing them, as they would all swear as he had done.' The other 
judges deciding to receive such votes, Mr. Abbott resigned." 

At other voting-places the judges of election were treated 
with great indignity, and particularly at Bloomington, where 
an "old soldier," John A. Wakefield, was one of the chief 
citizens. Upon the refusal of the judges to resign, the mob 
broke in the windows of the polling-place, and, presenting 
pistols and guns, threatened to shoot them. A voice from 
the outside cried, "Do not shoot them ; there are proslavery 
men in the house ! " The two Free-State judges still refusing 
to allow Missourians to vote, one Jones led on a party with 
bowie-knives drawn and pistols cocked, telling the judges 

^ Of this committee John Sherman, now Senator from Ohio, was a 
member. 



174 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BEOWN. [1855. 

''he would give them five minutes to resign or die." The 
five minutes passed by. Jones said he " would give another 
minute, but no more." The proslavery judge snatched up 
the ballot-boxes, and, crying out "Hurrah for Missouri!" 
ran into the crowd. The other judges, persuaded by their 
friends, who thought them in imminent peril, passed out, 
one of them putting the poll-books in his pocket. The Mis- 
souri mob pursued him, took the books away, and then 
turned upon Wakefield, shouting, '' Take him, dead or 
alive ! " What followed may be given in Wakefield's own 
words : — 

" I rau iuto the house and told Mr. Ramsay to give me his douhle- 
barrelled shot-gun. The mob rode up, aud I shouhi think a dozen or 
tnore presented their pistols at nie. I drew up the gun at Jones, the 
leader. We stood that way perhaps for a minute. A man profess- 
ing to be my friend undertook to take the gun from me, saying, ' If 
you shoot, we will all be killed : we can't fight this army.' My rejjly 
was, to stand ofl', or I would shoot him — which he did. Then one 
of my friends spoke in a very calm manner aud said, ' Judge, you 
had better surrender; we cannot fight this army without arms.' I 
tlien said I must know tlie conditions ; and remarked to the mob, 
' Gentlemen, what do you want with me ? ' Some one said, ' We 
want you to go baclv to tlie polls and state whether it was not you 
that persuaded the judges to take away the poll-books.' I said I 
could easily say no, for I could not get in hearing of tlie judges ; but 
if I could have, I should have done it. I said I would go back, but 
go alone ; I went back, and got upon a wagon and made them a 
short speech. I told them I was an old soldier, and had fought 
tlirough two wars for the rights of my country, and I thought I had 
a privilege there that day. I said they were in the wrong, — that 
we were not the Abolitionists they represented us to be, but were 
Free-State men; that they were abusing us unjustly, and that their 
acts were contrary to organic law and the Constitution of the United 
States. A man cried out, while I was speaking, several times, 
' Shoot him ! he 's too saucy.' When I got through and got down 
from the wagon, a man came up and told me he wanted to tie a white 
ribbon in my button-hole, or ' the boys would kill me.' I first re- 
fused ; but he insisted, and I let him do it ; then I turned round and 
cut it out with my knife. I then made an attempt to leave, when 
they cried out, ' Stay with us and vote ; we don't want you to leave.' 
I thanked them, but told them they could have it to themselves 
then, I should leave them ; and I went." 



1855.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 175 

There was something of Falstaff about this old Judge 
Wakefield, whose house was afterward burned in some of 
the raids of 1856, and of whom many anecdotes are told. 
But neither he nor the other brave men who took part in 
this election could do much against an invasion from Mis- 
souri in such overwhelming numbers. An English traveller, 
Mr. Thomas H. Gladstone, distantly related to the English 
premier, who visited Kansas in 1856, and has written a book 
about it,^ relates, on the authority of others, some incidents 
of this fraudulent, or "bogus," election thus: — 

" A Presbyterian clergymau, the Rev. Frederic Starr, who was an 
eye-witness of the fraud and intimidation practised at Leavenworth 
City, and has published a statement of this and preceding events, 
describes a scene by no means rare on the occasion of this election. 
' Some four days later,' he wiites, ' I was on my horse returning from 
Platte' City to Weston, when four wagons came along, and on the 
bottoms sat six men. A pole about five feet high stuck bolt upright 
at the front of the wagon ; ou its top stuck an inverted empty whiskey- 
bottle ; across the stick at right angles was tied a bowie-knife ; a 
black cambric Hag, with a death's-head-and-bones daubed on it in 
white paint, and a long streamer of beautiful glossy Missouri hemp, 
floated from the pole ; there was a revolver lashed across the pole, 
and a powder-horn hanging loosely by it. They bore the piratical 
symbols of Missouri ruffians returning from Kansas.' " 

A Missouri newspaper friendly to the Border Eufl&ans 
said, soon after this affair : — 

" From five to seven thousand men started from Missouri to attend 
the election; some to remove, but the most to return to their fami- 
lies, with an intention, if they liked the Territory, to make it their 
permanent abode at the earliest moment practicable. But they in- 
tended to vote. The Missourians were, many of them, Douglas 
County men. There were one hundred and fifty voters from this 
county, one hundred and seventy-five from Howard, one hundred 
from Cooper. Indeed, every county furnished its quota; and when 
they set out it looked like an army. They were armed ; and as there 
were no houses in the Territory, they carried tents. Their mission 

1 The Englishman in Kansas ; or, Squatter Life and Border Warfare. 
By T. H. Gladstone, Esq., author of the "Letters from Kansas" in the 
London Times. New York : Miller & Co., 1857. The book has 328 
pages, and contains a clear statement of the Kansas question. 



176 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

was a peaceable one, — to vote, and to drive down stakes for future 
homes. After the election, stjuie fifteen hundred of the voters seut a 
committee to Mr. Reeder to ascertain if it was his purpose to ratify 
the election. He said that it was, and that the maj(-)rity must carry 
the day. But it is not to be denied tliat the fifteen hundred, appre- 
hending that the governor might attempt to play the tyrant, — since 
his conduct had already been insidious and unjust, — wore on their 
hats hunches of hemp. They were resolved, if a tyrant attempted to 
tram]}le on the rights of a sovereign people, to hang him." 

The Legislature chosen in the manner above described held 
its sessions within a mile or two of the Missouri border, at 
a place called the Shawnee Mission, but spent the time when 
they were not in session^at the Missouri town of Westport. 
They unseated most of the few Free-State members who 
were declared by Governor Eeeder elected ; but the most 
distinguished member of the Council, or upper house, Martin 
F. Conway (a iNfaryland lawyer, w4io afterward represented 
Kansas in Congress), resigned his seat on the ground that 
the whole election was illegal. Governor Eeeder early no- 
tified both houses that he could not recognize their legality 
or approve their legislation ; but he was removed by the 
subservient President Pierce, who dared not resist the dic- 
tates of the slaveholders ; and the " bogus " Legislature 
proceeded, in August and September, 1855, to the most ex- 
treme and infamous action in support of slavery. A res- 
olution offered by J. H. Stringfellow w^as adopted in these 
words : — 

'' Be it resolved by the House of Eepresentatives, the Council concur- 
ring therein. That it is the duty of the proslavery party, the Union- 
loving men of Kansas Territory, to know but one issue, Slavery; 
and that any party makings or attempting to make, any other is and 
should be held as an ally of Abolitionism and Disunionism." 

The same Stringfellow (so appropriately named), in a 
letter to the " Montgomery Advertiser," wrote : " We have 
now laws more efficient to protect slave-property than any 
State in the Union. These laws have just taken effect 
(Sept. 1, 1855), and have already silenced Abolitionists ; for 
in spite of their heretofore boasting, these know they will be 



1855.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 177 

enforced to the very letter and with the utmost rigor." Let 
us see, then, what these laws were, which John Brown was 
even then journeying towards Kansas, through Illinois and 
Missouri, to confront and overthrow. Mr. Gladstone says of 
this Missouri-born Legislature : — 

" Being in haste to give a code of hiws to Kansas, they transferred 
into a volume of more than a thousand pages the greater jjart of the 
laws of their own State, substituting the words ' Territory of Kan- 
sas ' for ' State of Missouri.' In protection of slavery they enacted 
far more rigorous laws than obtain in Missouri, or than were ever 
before conceived of, — making it a felony to utter a word against the 
institution, or even to have in possession a book or paper which 
denies the right to hold slaves in Kansas. It wiU be seen that for 
every copy of a Free-State paper which a person might innocently 
purchase, the law would justify that person's condemnation to penal 
servitude for two or live years, dragging a heavy ball and chain at 
his ankle, and hired out for labor on the public roads or for the ser- 
vice of individuals at the fixed price of fifty cents per diem. So com- 
prehensive did these legislators make their slave-code, that by the 
authority they thus gave themselves they could in a very short time 
have made every Free-State man a chained convict, standing side by 
side, if tliey so pleased, with their slaves, and giving years of forced 
labor for the behoof of their proslavery fellow-citizens. The Legis- 
lature proceeded also to elect officers for the Territory. Even the . 
executive and judiciary were made to hold office from itself; and a 
board of commissioners chosen by the Legislature, instead of the in- 
habitants themselves, was empowered to appoint the shei-iffs, justices 
of the peace, constables, and all other officers in the various counties 
into «'hich the Territory was divided. Every member of succeeding 
legislatures, every judge of election, every voter, must swear to his 
faithfulness on the test questions of slavery. Every officer in the 
Territory, judicial, executive, or legislative, every attorney admitted 
to practice in the courts, every juryman weighing evidence on the 
rights of slaveholders, must attest his soundness in the interest of 
slavery, and his readiness to indorse its most repugnant measures. 
For further security the members of the assembly submitted their 
enactments to the chief-justice ^ for confirmation. This judicial 

1 "Had he not the Cliief- Justice," said Burke, in his impeachment of 
"Warren Hastings, — "the tamed and domesticated Chief- Justice, who waited 
on him like a familiar spirit ?" The Kansas dignitary of this name and 
function was he of whom John Brown once said, "he had a perfect right to 
be hung." 

12 



178 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

confirmation was gratefully given. All they had done was declared 
legal ; and the sheriffs and other local officers appointed hy the Leg- 
islature were equally ready with their aid in the execution of these 
unjust laws." 

To show that our English visitor, in his bktnt indignation 
at the iniquity he found flagrant in Kansas, has exaggerated 
nothing, let me cite tlie very words of this slave-code : — 

Chapter CLl. Slaves. An Act to punish Offences against Slave 

Property. 

Sec. 3. If any free person shall, by speaking, writing, or print- 
ing, advise, persuade, or imhiee any slaves to rebel, c()usi)ire against, 
or murder any citizen of this Territory, or shall bring into, print, write, 
j)ublish, or circulate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written, 
published, or circulated, or shall hwidnghj aid or assist in the bring- 
ing into, printing, icriting, publishing, or circulating, in this Terri- 
tory any book, pamphlet, p)aper, magazine, or circular, for the purpose 
of exciting insurrection, rebellion, revolt, or conspiracy on the part of 
the slaves, free negroes, or mulattoes, against tlie citizens of the Terri- 
tory or any part of them, such person shall be guilty of felony, and 
suffer death. 

Sec. 4. If any person shall entice, decoy, or carry away out of tliis 
Territory any slave belonging to another, with intent to deprive the 
owner thereof of the services of such shive, or with intent to efleet or 
procure the freedom of such slave, he shall be adjudged guilty of 
grand larceny, and on conviction thereof, shall suffer death, or be 
imprisoned at hard labor for not less than ten years. 

Sec. 5. If any person shall aid or assist in enticing, decoying, 
persuading, or carrying away, or sending out of this Territory any 
slave belonging to another, with intent to efi"ect or procure the free- 
dom of such slave, or with intent to deprive the owner thereof of the 
services of such slave, he shall be adjudged guilty of grand laix-eny, 
and on conviction thereof he shall suffer death, or be imprisoned at 
hard labor for not less than ten years. 

Sec 6. If any person shall entice, decoy, or carry away out of 
any State or other Territory of the United States any slave belonging 
to anotlier, with intent to procure or effect the freedom of such slave, 
or to deprive the owners thereof of the ser\nces of such slave, and shall 
bring such slave into this Territory, he shall be adjudged guilty of 
grand larceny, in the same manner as if such slave had been enticed, 
decoyed, or carried away out of this Territory ; and in such case the 



1855.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 179 

larceny may be charged to have been committed in any county of 
this Territory into or through which such slave shall have been 
brought by such person; and on conviction thereof, the person offend- 
ing shall suffer death, or be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than 
ten years. 

Sec. 9. If any person shall resist any officer while attempting to 
arrest any slave that may have escaped from the service of his master 
(jr owner, or shall rescue such slave when in the custody of any officer 
or other person, or shall entice, persuade, aid, or assist such slave 
from the custody of any officer or other person who may have such 
slave in custody, whether such slave have escaped fi'om the service 
of his master or owner in this Territory or in any other State or Ter- 
ritory, the person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and punished 
by imprisonment at hard labor for a term not less than two years. 

Sec. 11. If any person print, write, introduce into, publish, or 
circulate, or cause to be brought ^into, printed, written, published, or 
circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist in bringing into, printing, 
publisliing, or circulating within this Territory any book, paper, 
pamphlet, magazine, handbill, or circular containing any statements, 
arguments, ojnnions, sentiment, doctrine, advice, or innuendo calcu- 
lated to produce a disorderly, dangerous, or rebellious disaffection 
among the slaves of this Territory, or to induce such slaves to escape 
from the service of their masters, or resist their authority, he shall he 
guilty of felony, and he punished hy imprisonment at hard labor for 
a term not less than five years. 

Sec. 12. If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or 
maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Ter- 
ritory, or shall introduce into this Territory, print, publish, write, 
circulate, or cause to be printed, published, written, circulated, or 
introduced into this Territory, any book, paper, njagazine, pamphlet, 
or circular containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves 
in this Territory, such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and 
punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term not less than 
two years. 

Sec. 13. No person who is conscientiously opposed to holding 
slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in this Ter- 
ritory, shall sit as a juror on the trial of any prosecution for any 
violation of any of the sections of this act. 

It is plain at a glance, that Thomas Jefferson, through 
whom the existence of Kansas as a part of the United States 



180 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855, 

was made possible, and who wrote the first charter of our 
national existence, the Declaration of Independence, had he 
been living in Kansas under these detestable laws, could not 
have held oflice nor sat on a jury ; nay, he would have been 
liable to punishment as a felon, certainly under section eleven, 
and probably to the punishment of deatli under section three. 
If he dreaded in 1785 some mild " misapplication of law " 
which would have prevented the circulation of his " Notes 
on Virginia," what would he have said in 1855 of that worse 
than British or French tyranny which punished all generous 
sentiments in favor of the poor slave with imprisonment 
and with death ? Yet the men who enacted these laws, and 
the baser men at Washington who had them enforced by the 
national courts and the national army, were the professed 
followers of Jefferson, and one of them, the Secretary of 
War, bore his name.^ 

Such a crisis could not escape the eye nor fail to command 
the presence of John Brown. The disciple of Franklin and 
Jefferson, he could not be other than the sworn foeraan of 
Franklin Pierce and Jefferson Davis, whom God, for our 
sins, had allowed to be set in authority over us and over 
Kansas. He went far beyond Jefferson and Franklin, those 
founders of American democracy, in his sternness of hostil- 
ity to oppression. Jefferson had said, quoting an in)aginary 
epitaph on Bradshaw the regicide, " Rebellion to tyrants is 
obedience to God ; " and the spirit of that maxim had sought 
expression in the escutcheon of Virginia, with its proud 
legend, " Sic semper tyrcmnis." But Brown found in the 
tenets of Calvinism, in the practice of his Puritan ancestors, 
and in the oracles of the Bible, a more imperative and prac- 
tical duty enjoined, which he hastened to perform at Potta- 
watomie and elsewhere. There rang in his ears those deep 
notes of " the ballad-singer of Calvinism " (as Emerson called 
Isaac Watts) chanting in Puritan verse the avenging justice 
of the Hebrew Jehovah : — 



1 Jefferson Davis was Secretary of "War under Fravklin Pierce ; but 
Franklin and Jefferson, for whom they were named, could both have been 
shot or hanged in Kansas under their administration, if then living and 
maintaining the doctrines which gave them renown. 



1856.1 KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 181 

" Judges who rule the world by laws, 
Will ye despise the righteous cause, 
When th' injured pool- before you stands ? 
Dare ye condemn the righteous poor, 
And let rich sinners 'scape secure, 
While gold and greatness bribe your hands ? 

'* Have ye forgot, or never knew, 
That God will judge the judges too ? 
High in the heavens his justice reigns ; 
Yet you invade the rights of God, 
And send your bold decrees abroad 
To bind the conscience in your chains. 

" Break out their teeth, eternal God ! — 
Those teeth of lions dyed in blood, — 
And crush the serpents in the dust ! 
As empty chaff, when whirlwinds rise, 
Before the sweeping tempest flies, 
So let their hopes and names be lost. 

"Thus shall the justice of the Lord 
Freedom and peace to men afford ; 
And all that hear shall join and say, 
' Sure there 's a God that rules on high, 
A God that hears his children cry, 
And all their sufferings will repay.' " 

Until Brown arrived on the scene in Kansas, few blows 
had been struck in the Lord's cause. Mr. Gladstone, who 
reached Kansas City May 22, 1856, at the very moment 
when Brown heard of the burning of Lawrence, says : — 

" Among all the scenes of violence I witnessed it is remarkable 
that the offending parties were invariably on the proslavery side. 
The Free-State men appeared to me to be intimidated and overawed 
in consequence, not merely of the determination and defiant boldness 
of their opponents, but still more through the sanction given to these 
acts by the Government." 

He was deeply impressed with the wild and fierce aspect 
of the Border Kuffians, as he first saw them. He says : — 

" It was on the night of May 22, 1856, that I first came in contact 
with the Missourian patriots. I had just arrived in Kansas City, and 
shall never forget the appearance of the lawless mob that poured into 
the place, inflamed with drink, glutted with the indulgence of the 



182 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856 

vilest passions, displaying with loud boasts the ' plunder ' they had 
taken from the inliabitants, and thirsting fur the opportunity of re- 
peating the sack of Lawrence on some other offending place. Men, 
for the most part of large frame, with red flannel shirts and immense 
boots worn outside their trousers, their faces unwashed and unshaven, 
still reeking with the dust and smoke of Lawrence, wearing their 
most savage looks, and giving utterance to the most horrible impre- 
cations and blasphemies; armed, moreover, to the teeth with ritles 
and revolvers, cutlasses, and bowie-knives, — such were the men I 
saw around me. Some displayed a grotesque intermixture in their 
dress, having cn^ssed their native red rough shirt with the satin vest 
or narrow dress-coat, pillaged from some Lawrence Yankee, or haviug 
girded themselves with the cords and tassels which the day before had 
ad(n-ned the curtains of the Free-State Hotel. Looking around at these 
groups of drunken, bellowing, blood-thirsty demons, who crowded 
around the bar of the hotel, shouting for diiuk, or vented their furious 
noise on the levee outside, I felt that all my former experiences of 
Border men and Missourians bore faint comparison with the spectacle 
presented by this wretched crew, who appeared only the more terrify- 
ing from the darkness of the surrounding night. The hotel in Kan- 
sas City, where we were, was the next, they said, that should fall, — 
the attack was being planned that night ; and such, they declared, 
should be the end of every place which was built by Free-State men, 
or harboi'ed ' those rascally Abolitionists.' Happily, this threat was 
not fuiailed." 

Nor was the astoaishecl Englishman left in any doubt 
what all this meant. He had visited New York, Washing- 
ton, and most of the Southern States before going to Kansas, 
and went there from Mississippi. He says : " When in South 
Carolina and other Southern States, I witnessed extraordi- 
nary meetings, presided over by men of influence, at which 
addresses of almost incredible violence were delivered on 
the necessity of 'forcing slavery into Kansas,' of 'spreading 
the beneficent influence of Southern institutions over the 
new Territories,' of driving back at the point of the bayonet 
the nigger-stealing scum poured down by Northern fanati- 
cism." He knew what was the temper of Pierce, Gushing, 
Davis, Mason, and Toombs at Washington ; and he had not 
learned, as many of his countrymen did a few years later, 
to identify the oligarchy of slavery with the aristocracy of 
Europe, and to exult in the anticipated downfall of demo- 
cratic freedom in America. 



1859.J KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 183 

Long before Mr. Gladstone's arrival in Kansas, the real 
inhabitants of that Territory had declared their purpose to 
resist the " bogus " laws of the usurping Legislature. At a 
convention held in " Big Springs," 8ept. 5, I800, General 
Lane and ex-Governor Reeder had each brought forward res- 
olutions, somewhat inconsistent with each other, but wdiich 
the convention adopted. Those written by Eeeder, which the 
Kansas people afterward fully confirmed by their action, 
contained these declarations : " We owe no allegiance or 
obedience to the tyrannical enactments of this spurious 
Legislature ; their laws have no binding force upon the peo- 
ple of Kansas, and every freeman among us is at full liberty 
(consistent with all his obligations as a citizen and a man) 
to resist them if he chooses so to do. We will endure and 
submit to these laws no longer than the best interests of 
the Territory require as the least of two evils, and will re- 
sist them to a bloody issue so soon as we ascertain that 
peaceable remedies shall fail, and forcible resistance shall 
furnish any reasonable prospect of success. In the mean 
time we recommend to our friends throughout the Territory 
the organization and discipline of volunteer companies, and 
the procurement and preparation of arms." Upon this plat- 
form John Brown (who was not in Kansas when it was 
adopted, although four of his sons were) consistently acted 
from 1855 to 1859, when he finally left the Territory with 
a party of rescued slaves whom he carried to Canada early in 
1859, in utter defiance of the Kansas laws and the Fugitive 
Slave Law of Senator Mason. What his course had been in 
the mean time will be seen in the following chapters. The 
contest in Kansas went forward, with many changes and re- 
verses, in those four years ; and towards the close of 1859, 
just before Brown's death, the other great martyr of eman- 
cipation, Abraham Lincoln, came for a few days to look 
upon the scene of conflict. Mr. Wilder, the Kansas his- 
torian, speaking at Wathena, in Doniphan County, July 4, 
1884, said : — . 

" The greatest man who ever set foot in this township arrived here 
on the first day of December, 1859, — a warm and beautiful day. The 
late Judge Delahay and I met him at the depot in St. Joseph, Mo., 



184 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

that day, and rode up town with hiin ; took him to a barber's shop on 
Francis Street, just east of the Phxnter's House, where there is now a 
phiuiug-mill ; and I went up to Woolworth's news-stand, in the next 
bU)ck, and bought him the latest papers. Then the three went down 
to the ferry hiudiug, near the okl Robidoux building, and sat down in 
the dirt, on the bank, waiting for Captain Bkickiston's boat. Mr. Lin- 
coln's talk, sitting on that bank, was of Douglas and Colonel Thomas 
L. Harris, the famous Illinois Congressman. Mr. Lincoln always 
spoke kindly, almost tenderly, of his political opponents. On some 
occasion I asked him about John Calhoun, the first surveyor-general 
of Kansas and Nebraska, the president of the Lecompton Constitu- 
tional Convention, and probably the ablest Democratic manager we 
have ever had in Kansas. Mr. Linccdn spoke of Calhoun in terms 
of the highest esteem, and with affection. Mr. Calhoun had given 
him a surveying job when he was poor, needy, unknown ; and the 
great and good man had never forgotten it. Calhonn did his best — 
and that was much — to plant slavery in Kansas, but he was not the 
monster that our papers and speeches pictured him. By the way, 
Mr. Lincoln made Mark Delahay Surveyor-General, and wlien Dela- 
hay resigned, gave the place to me without my asking for it. Mr. 
Lincoln made a speech that evening at the Great Western Hotel, in the 
dining-room, — a very great speech, — to an audience called together 
by a man who went through the town sounding a gong. The next 
day, December 2d, the day on whidh John Brown was hanged, he 
spoke at Troy; and I think Colonel Ege replied to him, and fully 
vanquished the future President. He also spoke in Asahel Low's 
hotel in Doniphan ; and that completes the great man's connection 
with this county." 

The audiences in Kansas, even on the threshold of civil 
war, could not recognize the full greatness of the plain, awk- 
ward Illinois lawyer who was to lead his people like a true 
shepherd through dark and bloody ways. The qualities of 
John Brown were more obvious, and they attracted more 
attention in Kansas ; yet it was only here and there that his 
real rank was seen and appreciated, and by a singular in- 
gratitude it is in Kansas that his most malicious enemies 
are now found. Their malice cannot harm his renown ; he 
is as much above their reach now as he was above their 
comprehension while he fought in their cause, and traversed 
their prairies to make them glorious. "In a great age," 
says Cousin, speaking of Pascal, "everything is great." 



1859.] KANSAS AND THE CIVIL WAR. 185 

John Brown, like Abraham Lincoln, came to prominence in 
an age by no means grand or noble ; but such was his own 
heroic character that he conferred importance on events in 
themselves trivial. His petty conflicts in Kansas and the 
details of his two days' campaign in Virginia will be remem- 
bered when a hundred battles of our Civil War are forgot- 
ten. He was one of ten thousand, and, as Thoreau said, 
could not be tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers 
did not exist ; yet so much was he in accord with what is 
best in the American character, that- he will stand in history 
for one type of our people, as Franklin and Lincoln do, — 
only with a difference. He embodied the distinctive quali- 
ties of the Puritan, but with a strong tincture of the more 
humane sentiments of later times. No man could be more 
sincere in his faith toward God, more earnest in love for man ; 
his belief in foreordination was absolute, his courage not 
less. The emotion of fear seemed quite unknown to him, 
except in the form of diffidence, — if that were not rather a 
sort of pride. He was diffident of his power in speech or 
writing; yet who, of all his countrymen, has uttered more 
effective, imperishable words ? Part of the service he ren- 
dered to his country was by this heroic impersonation of 
traits that all mankind recognize as noble. The cause of 
the poor slave had need of all the charm that romantic 
courage could give it ; his defenders were treated with the 
contempt which attached to himself. They were looked 
upon with aversion by patriots ; they were odious to trade, 
distasteful to fashion and learning, impious in the sight of 
the Church. At the stroke of Brown's sword all this was 
changed : the cause that had been despised suddenly became 
hated, feared, and respected ; and out of this new fear and 
hatred our national safety was born. 

It was on the soil of Kansas that this transformation be- 
gan, though it was not completed until Brown's desperate 
onset and valiant death in Virginia. In Kansas he had with 
him the hopes and the support of millions, to whom he was 
then the defender of white men's rights ; in Virginia lie 
stood almost alone, — the omen and harbinger of that na- 
tional calamity which was to avenge the black man's wrongs. 
But in his devout mind the two causes united, as they were 



186 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

soon seen to unite in the event of the Civil War, to 
which the course and the result of the Kansas skirmish 
were as beacons lighting the way, and warning against use- 
less concession. O navis ! fortiter occupa portum, was the 
lesson of Kansas. 

Note. — On page 162, the statement that the Kansas-Nebraska Act left 
the people free "at each election to determine the existence of slavery tor 
themselves" is too strong, and interprets tliis juggling bill of Douglas too 
favorably. All that it did was to declare that the Territory, " «<; the tine 
oj its adniissiijii into Ike Union as a State, shall be received with or without 
slavery, as its Constitution may provide." But it also declared the light 
of the people "to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The mis- 
chief in this clause lay in the fiict that by the Dred Scott decision the Fed- 
eral Constitution was interpreted to hold slavery forever in a Territory, — 
as Abraham Lincoln forcibly showed in his speech at Springfield, 111., June 
17, 18.")8, saying, "The second point of the Dred Scott decision is that, 
'subject to the Constitution of the United States,' neither Co7igress nor a 
Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Terri- 
tory." I am indebted to Mr. T. D wight Thacher, of Topeka, for calling 
iny attention to this. 




JOHN BROWN. 

[1855.] 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 187 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 

"T^HE long contest against Southern slavery ended at last 
-^ in a revolution, of which Kansas saw the first outbreak. 
Then followed a bloody civil war, after which the South was 
reorganized, — or, as it was called, ''reconstructed," — with 
the corner-stone of its old social structure, negro slavery, 
left out, and emancipation, " the stone which the builders 
rejected," at last adopted in its place. In this contest, 
continuing for almost a century, but active and violent for 
about fifty years, there were four distinct parties or groups 
of men, varying in number as the struggle proceeded, but 
now nearly all merged in one great antislavery party, just 
as the persecution of the Christians ended in the conver- 
sion of the whole Roman world to Christianity. These jDar- 
ties were — (1) the Abolitionists, beginning with Franklin, 
Jefferson, and George Mason, and ending with Garrison, 
Lincoln, and Phillips ; (2) the proslavery men ; (3) the 
great body of neutrals ; and (4) the Brown family, by which 
I mean John Brown of Osawatomie, his father Owen Brown, 
and his children. This one household constituted itself an 
outpost of emancipation when the early Abolitionists had 
been defeated and Jefferson had grown silent ; it was an 
active force long before Garrison began his agitation (about 
1830), and it continued in the service until the freedom of 
the slaves was assured. There was no discharge in that 
war for the Brown family. As one generation passed away, 
another took its place ; and when the struggle became one 
of arms, the sons replaced each other in the fight, as the 
children of the old clansman in Scott's romance came for- 
ward to die one by one for their chieftain. " Another for 
Freedom ! " was as potent a call with them as " Another for 



188 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1854. 

Hector ! " with the sons of the defeated clan. The Browns 
too were defeated, but only for a time, and in such a way 
that their renown was increased thereby. From a local 
leader John Brown became a world-famous martyr. 

" Are you Captain Brown of Kansas ? " asked the Vir- 
ginian at Harper's Ferry of the old hero, as he recovered 
from the stabs and blows of Lee's soldiers. 

" I am sometimes called so." 

" Are you Osawatomie Brown ? " 

" / tried to do my duty therey 

So long as these manly answers and the manly acts that 
preceded them remain on the record ; so long as the public 
murder of John Brown for the crime of emancipation is a 
part of the history of that republic which within fite years 
completed emancipation at the cost of half a million lives, — 
so long will the deeds and sufferings of the Brown family 
in Kansas be as important a chapter in the history of that 
State as any that can be written. 

Let us then resume the homely series of family letters in 
which the father and his children told each other the story 
of their pilgrimage to Kansas in 1854-55, and what befell 
them there ; beginning with the account given in November, 
1883, by the present head of the family, John Brown, Jr., 
of the circumstances attending and preceding this removal 
from Ohio and the Adirondac forest to Osawatomie in Kan- 
sas. The town of this name is ten miles from the vari- 
ous settlements of the Brown family on the branches of the 
Pottawatomie Creek (properly a river) ; but the brother-in- 
law of Brown, the Rev. S. L. Adair, established himself at 
Osawatomie in 1854, and his log-cabin served as a rendez- 
vous for the family so long as they remained in Kansas. 
John Brown, Jr., says : — 

" During the years 1853 and 18.54 most of the leading Ndrthorn 
newspapers were not only full of sjl'^'wing aceonnts of the extraordi- 
nary fertility, healthfnlness, and beauty of the Territory of Kansas, 
tlien newly opened for settlement, but of urgent appeals to all lovers 
of freedom who desired homes in a new region to go there as settlers, 
and by their votes save Kansas from the curse of slavery. Influenced 
by these considerations, in the month of October, 1854, five of the 
sons of John Brown, — John, Jr., Jason, Owen, Frederick, and Sal- 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 189 

mon, — then residents of the State of Ohio, made their arrangements 
to emigrate to Kansas. Their combined property consisted chiefly 
of eleven head of cattle, mostly young, and three horses. Ten of 
this number were valuable on account of the breed. Thinking these 
especially desirable in a new country, Owen, Frederick, and Salmon 
took them by way of the lakes to Chicago, thence to Meridosia, 111., 
where they were wintered ; and in the following spring drove them 
into Kansas to a place selected by these brothers for settlement, about 
eight miles west of the town of Osawatomie. My brother Jason and 
his family, and I with my family followed at the opening of naviga- 
tion in the spring of 1855, going by way of the Ohio and Mississippi 
rivers to St. Louis. There we purchased two small tents, a plough, 
and some smaller farming-tools, and a hand-mill for grinding corn. 
At this period there were no railroads west of St. Louis ; our journey 
must be continued by boat on the Missouri at a time of extremely 
low water, or by stage at great expense. We chose the river route, 
taking passage on the steamer * New Lucy,' which too late we found 
crowded with passengers, mostly men from the South bound for Kan- 
sas. That they were from the South was plainly indicated by their 
language and dress; while their drinking, profanity, and display of re- 
volvers and bowie-knives — openly worn as an essential part of their 
make-up — clearly showed the class to which they belonged, and 
that their mission was to aid in establishing slavery in Kansas. 

" A box of fruit-trees and grape-vines which my brother Jason had 
brought from Ohio, our plough, and the few agricultural implements 
we had on the deck of that steamer looked lonesome ; for these were 
all we could see which were adapted to the occupations of peace. 
Then for the first time arose in our minds the query : Must the fertile 
prairies of Kansas, through a struggle at arms, be first secured to free- 
dom before free men can sow and reap ? If so, how poorly we were 
prepared for such work will be seen when I say that, for arms, five of 
us brothers had only two small squirrel rifles and one revolver. But 
Ix'fore we reached our destination other matters claimed our attention. 
Cholera, which then prevailed to some extent at St. Louis, broke out 
nmong our passengers, a number of whom died. Among these 
biiither Jason's son Austin, aged four years, the elder of his two chil- 
<hen, fell a A'ictim to this scourge ; and while our boat lay by for 
repair of a broken rudder at Waverley, Mo., we buried him at night 
near that panic-stricken town, our lonely way illumined only by the 
lightning of a furious thunderstorm. True to his spirit of hatred of 
Northern people, our captain, without warning to us on shore, cast 
oflF his lines and left us to make our way by stage to Kansas City, 
to which }tlace we had already paid our fare by boat. Before we 
reached there, however, we became very hungry, and endeavored to 



190 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

buy food at various farm-houses on the way ; but the occupants, 
judging from our speech that we were not from the South, always 
denied us, saying, ' We have nothing for you.' The only exception 
to this answer was at the stage-house at Independence, Mo. 

"Arrived in Kansas, her lovely prairies and wooded streams seemed 
to us indeed like a haven of rest. Here in prospect we saw our cat- 
tle increased to hundreds and possibly to thousands, fields of corn, 
orchards, and vineyards. At once we set about the work thnnigh 
which only our visions of prosperity could be realized. Our tents 
would suffice for slielter until we could plough our land, plant corn 
and other crops, fruit-trees, and vines, cut and secure as hay enough 
of the waving grass to supply our stock the coming winter. These 
cheering prospects beguiled our labors through late spring until mid- 
summer, by which time nearly all of our number were prostrated by 
fever and ague that would not stay cured ; the grass cut for hay 
mouldered in the wet for want of the care we could not bestow, and 
our crop of corn wasted by cattle we could not restrain. If these 
minor ills and misfortunes were all, they could be easily borne; but 
now began to gather the dark clouds of war. An election for a first 
Territorial Legislature had been held on the 30th of March of this 
year. On that day tlie residents of Missouri along the borders came 
into Kansas l)y thousands, and took forcible possession of the polls. 
In the words of Horace Greeley, ' There was no disguise, no pre- 
tence of legality, no regard for decency. On the evening before and 
the morning of the day of election, nearly a thousand Missourians 
arrived at Lawrence in wagons and on horseback, well armed with 
rifies, pistols, and bowie-knives, and two pieces of cannon loaded 
with musket balls. Although but 831 legal electors in the Territory 
voted, there were no less thau G,320 votes polled. They elected all 
the members of the Legislature, with a single exception in either 
house, — the two Free-Soilers being cliosen from a remote district 
which the Missourians overlooked or did not care to reach.' 

" Early in the spring and summer of this year the actual settlers 
at their convention repudiated this fraudulently chosen Legislature, 
and refused to obey its enactments. Upon this, the border papers of 
Missouri in flaming appeals urged the ruffian horde that had pre- 
viously invaded Kansas to arm, and otherwise prepare to march 
again into the Territory when called upon, as they socm would be, 
to ' aid in enforcing tlie laws.' War of some magnitude, at least, 
now appeared to us brothers to be inevitable; and I wrote to our 
father, whose home was in Xortli Elba, N. Y., asking him to procure 
and send to us, if he could, arms and ammunition, so that we could 
be better prepared to defend ourselves and our neighbors. He soon 
obtained them; but instead of sending, he came on with them him- 



1855.] THE BROWN FAillLY IN KANSAS. 191 

self, accompanied by my brother-iu-law Heury Thompson, and my 
brother Oliver. In Iowa he bought a horse and covered wagon ; 
concealing the arms in this and conspicuously displaying his survey- 
ing implements, he crossed into Missouri near Waverley, and at that 
place disinterred the body of his grandson, and brought all safely 
through to our settlement, arriving there about the 6th of October." 

In August, 1854, when John Brown, Jr., had first men- 
tioned to his father his purpose of emigrating to Kansas, it 
was not the intention of the father to accomimny them, 
although he was willing aiid rather desirous his children 
should go. In a letter written from Akron (Aug. 21, 1854), 
he said to John : " If you or any of my family are disposed to 
goto Kansas or Nebraska, with a view to help defeat Satan 
and his legions in that direction, I have not a word to say ; 
hut I feel committed to operate in another part of the field. If 
I were not so committed, I would be on my way this fall. 
Mr. Adair [who married Brown's half-sister Florilla] is 
fixing to go, and wants to find 'good anen and true ' to go 
along. I would be glad if Jason would give away his Eock 
and go. Owen is fixing for some move ; I can hardly say 
what." In fact, the four brothers, — John, Jason, Owen, and 
Frederick Brown, — as above mentioned, set out for Kansas 
in 1854, arriving there in the early spring of 1855, and set- 
tling near their uncle^ Mr. Adair. John Brown himself soon 
changed his mind and prepared to follow them, first visit- 
ing North Elba and New England ; and at this point his let- 
ters to his family at North Elba may be taken up, relating, 
in their simple way, the domestic history in these removals, 
and the frugal plans he formed for the maintenance and 
comfort of those dependent on him or under his guidance. 
Here will be found little speech of the great objects he had 
in view, but much concerning cattle and household affairs ; 
as in the correspondence, were it preserved, of some Oriental 
patriarch migrating from land to land in Scripture times. 

John Brown to his Children. 

Akron, Ohio, Jan. 3, 1855. 

Dear Children, — Last night your letters to Jason were re- 
ceived (dated December 26), and I had the reading of them. I 



192 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. 11855. 

conclude from tlie long time mine to you from Albany was on the 
way, that you did not reply to it. On my return here from North 
Elba I was disappointed of about three hundred dollars for cattle 
sold to brother Frederick, and am still in the same condition, — he 
having gone to Illinois just before I left to go East, and not having 
returned nor written me a word since. This puts it out of my power 
to move my family at present, and will until I get my money, unless 
I sell off my Devtm cattle, — which I cannot, without great sacrifice, 
before spring opens. Your remarks about hay make me doubt the 
propriety of taking on any cattle till spring, as I have here an abun- 
dance of feed. I am now entirely unable to say whether we can get 
off before spring or not. All are well here, so far as we know. Owen 
and Frederick were with their uncle Edward in Meridosia, 111. (where 
they expect to winter), on the 23d December; they were well, and 
much pleased with the country, and with him. You can write them 
at that place, care of Edward Lusk, Esq. I may send on one of the 
boys before the family go, but am not now determined. Can write 
no more now^ for want of time. Write me, on receipt of this, any and 
every thing of use or interest. 

Your affectionate father, John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, Feb. 13, 1855. 
Dear Children, — I have deferred answering your very accept- 
able letter of January 30 for one week, in the hope of having some 
news to write you about Owen and Frederick ; but they are so negli- 
gent about writing that I have not a word to send now. I got quite 
an encouraging word about Kansas from Mr. Adair the other day. 
He had before given quite a gloomy picture of things. He and fam- 
ily were all well. The friends here were all well a few days since. 
John and Wealthy have gone back to Vernon, John taking with him 
my old surveyor's instruments, in consideration of having learned to 
survey. I have but little to write that will interest you, so I need 
not be lengthy. I think we may be able to get off in March, and I 
mean to sell some of our Devon cattle in order to effect it, if I can do 
no better. I should send on Watson within a few days, if I thought 
I could manage to get along with the family and cattle without his help. 
I may conclude to do so still before we get away. The last of January 
and February, up to yesterday, have been very remarkable for unin- 
terrupted cold weather for this section. We were glad to learn that 
you had succeeded in getting the house so comfortable. I want 
Johnny should be so good a boy that " 95 will not turn him off." 
Can you tell whether the Stout lot was ever redeemed in December 
or not by the owners ? 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 193 

RocKFORD, Winnebago County, III., May 7, 1855. 

Dear Children, — I am here with my stock of cattle to sell, in 
order to raise fuuds so that I can move to North Elba, and think I 
may get them off in about two weeks. Oliver is here with me. We 
shall get on so late that we can put in no crops (which I regret), so 
that you had perhaps better plant or sow what you can conveniently 
on "95."^ I heard from John and Jason and their families (all 
well) at St. Louis on the 21st April, expecting to leave there on the 
evening of that day to go up the Missouri for Kansas. My family 
at Akron were well on the 4th inst. As I may be detained here some 
days after you get this, I wish you to write me at once what Avheat 
and corn are worth at Westport now, as near as you can learn. 
People are here so busy sowing their extensive fields of grain, that I 
cannot get them even to see my cattle now. Direct to this place, care 
of Shepard Leach, Esq. 

RocKFOKD, Winnebago County, III., June 4, 1855. 

Dear Children, — I write just to say that I have sold my cattle 
without making much sacrifice, and exjiect to be on my way home 
to-morrow. Oliver expects to remain behind and go to Kansas. 
After I get home I expect to start with my family for North Elba as 
soon as we can get ready. We may possibly get off this week, but 
I hardly think we can. I have heard nothing further as yet from 
the boys in Kansas. All were well at home a few days since. 

Hudson, Ohio, June 18, 1855. 

Dear Children, — I write to say that we are (after so long a 
time) on our way to North Elba, with our freight also delivered at 
the Akron depot ; we look for it here to-night. If this reaches you 
before we get on, I would like to have some one with a good team go 
out to Westport on next Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday forenoon, 
to take us out or a load of our stuff. We have some little thought 
now of going with our freight by the Welland Canal and by Ogdens- 
burgh to Westport, in which case we may not get around until after 
you get this. All are well here, so far as we know. 

Your affectionate father, John Brown. 

To his Wife. 

Syracuse, June 28, 1855. 

Dear Wife and Children, — I reached here on the first day 
of the convention, and I have reason to bless God that I came ; for 

1 Brown's farm at North Elba. 
13 



194 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

I have met with a most warm reception from all, so far as I know, 
and — except by a few sincere, honest peace friends — a most hearty 
approval of my intention of arming my sons and other friends in 
Kansas. I received to-day donations amounting to a little over sixty 
dollars, — twenty from Gerrit Smith, five from an old British officer ; ^ 
others giving smaller sums with sucli earnest and uffeeiiouate expres- 
sions of their good wishes as did me more good tlian money even. 
John's two letters were introduced, and read with such effect by Ger- 
rit Smith as to draw tears from numerous eyes in the great collection 
of people present. The convention has been one of the most in- 
teresting meetings I ever attended in my life; and I made a great 
addition to the number of warm-hearted and honest friends. 



Letters fro7n John Browii^s Sons in Kansas to their Father. 

Brownsville, Brown Co.,^ K. T., 
Friday Morning, June 22, 1855. 

Dear Father, — Day before yesterday we received a letter from 
you dated Rockford, 111., 24th May, which for some unaccountable 
cause has been very long delayed on the road. We are exceed- 
ingly glad to hear from you, and that you still intend coming on. 
Our health is now excellent, and our crops, cattle, and horses look 
finely. We have now about twelve acres of sod corn in the ground, 
more than a quarter acre of white beans, two and a half bushels seed 
potatoes planted and once hoed, besides a good garden containing corn, 
potatoes, beets, cabbages, turnips, a few onions, some peas, cucum- 
bers, melons, squashes, etc. Jason's fruit-trees, grape-vines, etc., 
that survived the long period of transportation, look very well : prob- 
ably more than half he started with are living, with the exception of 
peaches ; of these he has only one or two trees. As we arrived so 
late in the season, we have but little expectation of harvesting much 

1 This was Charles Stewart, a retired captain of the British army, who 
had served under Wellington in India or Spain, afterwards emigrated to 
America, and who became one of the zealous associates of Gerrit Smith in 
the autislavery crusade of 1835-50. He was visiting at Mi-. Smith's house 
in 1855 ; and I found him there again in February, 1858, when I met 
Brown in Mrs. Smith's parlor, to hear the disclosure of his Virginia plans. 
The money given to Brown at Syracuse, in June, 1855, was in part ex- 
pended by him at Springfield, in July, for arms. He then saw his old 
friend Thomas Thomas, the Maryland frcedman, and urged him to join in 
the Kansas expedition ; but Thomas, who had made his arrangements to 
live in Califoi'nia, declined, and never met Brown again. 

2 This is now Cutler, in Franklin County. 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 195 

corn, and but few potatoes. The rainy season usually commences 
here early in April or before, and continues from six to eight weeks, 
during which a great amount of rain falls. This year we had no rain 
of any consequence before the 12th or 15th of May ; since then have 
had two heavy rains accompanied with some wind and most tremen- 
dous thunder and lightning ; have also had a number of gentle rains, 
continuing from one to twenty-four hours ; but probably not more 
than half the usual fall of rain has yet come. As the season last 
year was irregular in this I'espect, probably this will be to some 
extent. We intend to keep our garden, beans, and some potatoes 
watered if we can, so as to have something if our corn should be a 
failure. As it is, the prospect is middling fair, and the ground is 
ploughed ready for early planting next year. Old settlers here say that 
people should calculate on having the spring's sowing and planting 
all done by the middle of April ; in that case their crops are more 
abundant. The prairies are covered with grass, which begins to 
wave in the wind most beautifully ; shall be able to cut any quan- 
tity of this, and it is of far better quality than I had any idea. 

In answer to your questions : Good oxen are from $50 to $80 per 
yoke, — have been higher ; common cows, from $15 to $25, — prob- 
ably will not be higher ; heifers in proportion. Limited demand as 
yet for fine stock. Very best horses from $100 to $150 each ; aver- 
age fair to good, $75 to $80. No great demand now for cattle or 
horses. A good strong buggy would sell well, — probably a Lum- 
beree best. Mr. Adair has had several chances to sell his. Very few 
Liimheree buggies among the settlers. White beans, $5 per bushel ; 
corn meal, $1.75 per bushel of fifty pounds, tending downward; 
flour, $7 per hundred pounds; dried apples, 12i cents per pound; 
bacon, 12 to 14 cents here ; fresh beef, 5 to 6 cents per pound. 
Enclosed is a slip cut from a late number of the " Kansas Tribune'' 
giving the markets there, which differ somewhat from prices in this 
section. It is the paper published at Lawrence by the Speers. 

I have no doubt it would be much cheaper and healthier for you 
to come in the way you propose, with a " covered lumber buggy and 
one horse or mule," especially from St Louis here. The navigation 
of the Missouri River, except by the light-draught boats recently built 
for the Kansas River, is a horrid business in a low stage of water, 
which is a considerable portion of the year. You will be able to see 
much more of the country on your way, and if you carry some pro- 
visions along it is altogether the cheaper mode of travelling ; besides, 
such a conveyance is just what you vpant here to carry on the busi- 
ness of surveying. You can have a good road here whithersoever 
you may wish to go. Flour, white beans, and dried fruit will doubt- 
less continue for some time to come to be high. It is believed that 



196 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

a much larger emigratinn will arrive here this fall than before. 
Should you buy anything to send by water, you can send it either to 
Lawrence, thirty-five miles north of us, or to Kansas City, Mo., care 
of Walker & Chick, sixty miles northeast of us. 

A surveyor would soon find that great numbers are holding more 
land, and especially timber, than can be covered by 160 acres, or 
even 320, and that gi-eat numbers are holding claims for their 
friends ; so that I have no doubt people will find a sufficient amount 
of timber yet for a long time. Owing to the rapid settlement of the 
country by squatters, it does not open a good field for speculators. 

The land on which we are located was ceded by the Pottawatomie 
Indians to the Government. The Ottawa lands are soon to be sold, 
each person of the tribe reserving and choosing two hundred acres; 
the remainder open to pre-emption after their choice is made. The 
Peoria lands have been bargained for by the Grovernment, and are to 
be sold to the highest bidder without reservation. But Missourians 
have illegally gone on to these Peoria lands, intending to combine 
and prevent their going higher than $1.25 per acre, and then claim, 
if they go higher, a large amount of improvements, — thus cheating 
the Indians. The Ottawas intend to divide into families, and cul- 
tivate the soil and the habits of civilized life, as many of them are 
now doing. They are a fine people. The Peorias are well advanced, 
and miglit do the same but for a bad bargain with our Government. 

[Hero is drawn a plan of the Brown settlement or claim.] 

There is a town site recently laid out on the space marked "village 
plat;" as there are two or three in sight, it is uncertain which will 
be taken. The semicircle is even ground, sloping every way, and 
affording a view in every way of from twenty to thirty miles in every 
direction, except one small point in the direction of Osawatomie ; the 
view from this ground is beautiful beyond measure. The timbered 
lands on Middle Creek are covered with claims ; the claimants, many 
of them from Ohio, Illinois, and the East, are mostly Free-State 
folks. There are probably twenty families within five or six miles 
of us. 

Day before yesterday Owen and I ran the Peoria line -east to see 
if there might not be found a patch of timber on some of the numer- 
ous small streams which put into the Osage, and which would be 
south of the Peoria line. We found on a clear little stream sufficient 
timber for a log-house, and wood enough to last say twenty families for 
tM'o or three years, perhaps more, and until one could buy and raise 
more. Here a good claim could be made by some one. The prairie 
land which would be included is of the very best I have ever seen ; 
plenty of excellent stone on and adjoining it. Claims will soon be 
made here that will have no more than two or thn^e acres of timber; 



1855.1 THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 197 

and after these are exhausted prau'ie claims will be taken, the claim- 
ants depending on buying their timber. Already this is the case, and 
many are selling oflf twenty, thirty, and forty acres from their timber 
claims to those who have none. 

The above, though without signature, is in the handwrit- 
ing of Jolm Brown, Jr. ; and the plan of " Brown's Sta- 
tion " is drawn in his neat surveyor's manner. In the same 
envelope evidently went the two following letters from Jason 
Brown (familiarly called " Jay " by his family) and Salmon, 
the eldest son of the second marriage. 

OsAWATOiMiE, K. T., June 23, 1855. 

Dear Father, Mother, Brothers, and Sisters, — We re- 
ceived a few days since a letter from mother, since then one from 
father, which we were all very glad to get. I should have written you 
before, but since we laid little Austin in the grave I have not felt as 
if I could write. I shall not attempt to say much now. We fully 
believe that Austin is happy with his Maker in another existence ; 
and if there is to be a separation of friends after death, we pray God 
to keep us in the way of truth, and that we may so run our short 
course as to be able to enjoy his company again. Ellen feels so* 
lonely and discontented here without Austin, that we shall go back 
to Akron next fall if she does not enjoy herself better. I am well 
pleased with the country, and can be as well content here as any- 
where else if it proves to be healthy. It is a very rich and beautiful 
country. I should think it would be altogether best for father to 
come by land from St. Louis. Salmon has a very good claim (as 
well as the rest of us), and seems to be very much pleased with it. 
We are all living together in tents and in the wagon, and have no 
houses yet. I used all the money I had for freight and passage be- 
fore I got here, aiad had to borrow of John. We have no stoves ; I 
wish now that we had brought ours along. We would aU like to 
hear from you often. All well. 

Your affectionate son and brother, 

J. L. Brown. 

P. S. If you should come by Akron on your way here, and could 
buy and box up a middle-sized stove and furniture, with about four 
lengths of pipe, and send or bring it to me at Kansas City, I will 
contrive some way to pay you for it. I think they can be got there 
and shipped here cheaper than they can be bought here. I would 
like to have you inquire, if you will. 



198 LIPE AXD LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855 

OsAWATOMiE, K. T., June 22, 1855. 
Dear Father, — We received your letter from Rockford, 111., this 
week, aud are very glad that you are goiug to get through there soon, 
and that you are going to be here before fall. In answer to your 
questions about what you will need for your company, 1 would say 
that I have one acre of corn that looks very well, and some beans and 
squashes and turnips. You will want to get some pork and meal, 
and beans enough to last till the crop comes in, and then I think 
we will have enough grain to last through the winter. I vA'ill have a 
house up by the time that you will get here. My boots are very near 
worn out, and I shall need some summer pants and a hat. I bought 
an axe, and that you will not have to get. There are slaves owned 
within three miles of us. 

Your affectionate son, 

Salmon Brown. 



From Oliver Broion to his Mother at North Elba. 

Rockford, Winnebago County, III., Aug. 8 [1855]. 

Dear Mother, — I just received yours of the 31st, and also of 
the 1st, aud was very much pleased to hear that you were all well. 
I also received letters from father and Ruth at tlie saine time, which 
I was very glad to get ; but I much more expected to see father than 
to hear from him. My healtli is very good at present, but has been 
very poor for a week or ten days back. I am working now for a man 
named Goodrich, getting $1.50 per day, which I have to earn, every 
cent of it. I never worked so hard before. I am quite sorry to hear 
that you are likely ttt have rather tough times of it for a year to come. 
Was T certain that father would not be distressed for money when he 
gets here, I would send you enough to buy another cow; but I think 
we must try and see what we can do for you when we get to Kansas. 
Have written to Salmon twice, but have received no answer as yet. 
My shirts hold out very well so fiir, but I think the ones you were 
going to send by father will come in play in course of the season. 
I very much hope to see Alexis Hinkley with him. Should much 
like to have Watson with us, but do not see that it is possible. I 
hope to see you all in Kansas in the course of a year or two. It has 
been very dry here, but crops look very well. I received that receipt 
for cholera medicine, and went at once and got the whole dose mixed 
up. I do not think of more at present, so please all write me soon ; 
and Wat. you must spur up about writing, and Anna too. 
From your affectionate son, 

Oliver Brown. 



1855.1 THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 199 



From John Broion to his Family at North Elba. 

Chicago, III., Aug. 23, 1855. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — I see that Henry 
has given you so full a history of our inattei-s that I have but little to 
say now, hut to add that we start from here this morning, all well. 
We have a nice young horse, for which we paid here $120, but have 
so much load that we shall have to walk a good deal — enough prob- 
ably to supply ourselves with game. We have provided ourselves 
with the most of what we need on our outward march. If you get 
this on Tuesday and answer it on Wednesday, some of you directing 
on the outside to Oliver, at Rock Island, 111., we should probably get 
your answer there. Oliver's name is not so common as either Henry's 
or mine. We shall write you often, and hope you wiU do so by us. 
You may direct one to Oliver at Kansas City, Mo., as we may go 
there, and shall be very glad to hear from you. Write us soon at 
Osawatomie, Kansas, and may God Almighty bless you all ! 
Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Scott County, Iowa, Sept. 4 [1855], in Morning. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — I am writing in our tent 
about twenty miles west of the Mississippi, to let you know that we 
are all in good health and how we get along. We had some delay 
at Chicago on account of our freight not getting on as we expected ; 
while there we bought a stout young horse that proves to be a very 
good one, but he has been unable to travel fast for several days from 
having taken the distemper. We think he appears quite as well as ' 
he has, this morning ; and we hope he will not fail us. Our load is 
heavy, so that we have to walk most of the time ; indeed, all the 
time the last day. The roads are mostly very good, and we can 
make some progress if our horse does not fail us. We fare very well 
on crackers, herring, boiled eggs, prairie chicken, tea, and sometimes a 
little milk. Have three chickens now cooking for our breakfast. We 
shoot enough of them on the wing as we go along to supply us with 
fresh meat. Oliver succeeds in bringing them down quite as well as 
any of us. Our expenses before we got away from Chicago had been 
very heavy; since then very light, so that we hope our money will 
not entirely fail us ; but we shall not have any of account left when 
we get through. 

We expect to go direct through IMissouri, and if we are not obliged 
to stop on account of (jur horse, shall soon be there. We mean to 
writ^you often when we can. We got to Rock Island too soon for 



200 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

any letter from you, but shall not be too early at Kansas City, where 
we hope to hear from you. The country through whicli we have 
travelled from Chicago has been mostly very good ; the worst fault 
is want of living streams of water. With all the comforts we have 
along our journey, I think, could I hope in any other way to an- 
swer the end of my being, I would be quite content to be at North 
Elba. 

I have directed the sale of the cattle in Connecticut, and to have 
the rest sent in a New York draft payable to Watson's order, which 
I hope will make you all quite comfortable. Watson should get 
something more at Elizabethtown than the mere face of the draft. 
He will need to write his name across the back of the draft when he 
sells it : about two inches from the top end would be the proper place. 
I want you to make the most of the money you get, as I expect to be 
very poor about money from any other source. Commend you all to 
the mercy and infinite grace of God. I bid you all good-by for this 
time. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown.^ 

OsAWATOMiE, K. T., Oct. 13, 1855. 
Saturday Eve. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — We reached the 
place where the boys are located one week ago, late at night; at 
least Henry and Oliver did. I, being tired, stayed behind in our 
tent, a mile or two back. As the mail goes from here early Monday 
morning, we could get nothing here in time for that mail. We found 
all more or less sick or feeble but Wealtliy and Johnny.^ All at 
Brownsville appear now to be mending, but all sick or feeble here at 

1 The following receipts belong in this portion of the family papers : the 
first one is for arms purchased with money contributed by Gerrit Smith 
and others for use in Kansas ; the second is for the wagon in which Brown 
made the journey to Kansas : — 

Springfield, Mass., July 24, 1855. 
Received of John Brown one box fii-e:irms and flasks, to be forwarded by railroad 
to Albany, and consigned to him at Cleveland, Ohio, care of H. B. Spellman of that 
place. 

Thomas O'Connell, 

For W. R. R. Company. 

SlOO. Received of John Brown one hundred dollars in full for a heavy horse wagon, j 
this day sold him, and which we agree to ship immediately to J. B., Iowa City, Iowa, J 
care of Dr. Jesse Bowen. 

Billings & Bryant. 

* Son of John Brown, Jr. ' 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 201 

Mr. Adair's. Fever and ague and chill-fever seem to be very general. 
Oliver has had a turn of the ague since he got here, but has got it 
broken. Henry has had no return since first breaking it. We met 
with no difficulty in passing through Missouri, but from the sickness 
of our horse and our heavy load. The horse has entirely recovered. 
We had, between us all, sixty cents in cash when we arrived. We 
found our folks in a most uncomfortable situation, with no houses to 
shelter one of them, no hay or corn fodder of any account secured, 
shivering over their little tires, all exposed to the dreadful cutting 
winds, morning and evening and stormy days. We have been trying 
to help them all in our power, and hope to get them more comfortable 
soon. I think much of their ill health is owing to most unreasonable 
exposure. Mr. Adair's folks would be quite comfortable if they were 
well. One letter from wife and Anne to Salmon, of August 10, and 
one from Ruth to John, of 19th September, is all I have seen from 
any of you since getting here. Henry found one from Ruth, which 
he has not shown me. Need I write that I shall be glad to hear 
from you ? I did not write while in Missouri, because I had no confi- 
dence in your getting my letters. We took up little Austin and 
brought him on here, which appears to be a great comfort to Jason 
and Ellen. We were all out a good part of the last night, helping 
to keep the prairie fire from destroying everything ; so that I am 
almost blind to-day, or I would write you more. 



Sabbath Eve, October 14. 
I notice in your letter to Salmon your trouble about the means of 
having the house made more comfortable for winter, and I fondly 
hope you have been relieved on that score before now, by funds 
from Mr. Hurlbut, of Winchester, Conn., from the sale of the cattle 
there. Write me all about your situation ; for, if disappointed from 
that source, I shall make every effort to relieve you in some other 
way. Last Tuesday was an election day with Free-State men in 
Kansas, and hearing that there was a prospect of difficulty we all 
tunied out most thoroughly armed (except Jason, who was too fee- 
ble) ; but no enemy appeared, nor have I heard of any disturbance 
in any part of the Territory. Indeed, I believe Missouri is fast be- 
coming discotiraged about making Kansas a slave State, and I think 
the prospect of its becoming free is brightening every day. Try to 
be cheerful, and always " hope in God," who will not leave nor for- 
sake them that trust in him. Try to comfort and encourage each 
other all you can. You are all very dear to me, and I humbly trust 
we may be kept and spared to meet again on earth ; but if not, let 
us all endeavor earnestly to secure admission to that eternal home, 



202 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1854. 

where will be no more bitter separations, " where the wicked shall 
cease from troubling and the weary be at rest." We shall probably 
speud a few days more in helping the boys to provide some kind of 
shelter fur winter, and mean to write you often. May God in infinite 
mercy bless, comfort, and save you all, for Christ's sake ! 
Your afl'ectiouate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

In addition to the account given by John Brown, Jr., of 
the pilgrimage to Kansas, tlie following notice of it, written 
by the father, and found among his papers at North Elba, 
may here be cited. He wrote thus : — 

" In 1854 the four eldest sons of John Brown, named John, Jr., 
Jason, Owen, and Frederick (all children by a first wife), then living 
in Ohio, determined to remove to Kansas. John, Jr., sold his place, 
a very desirable little property, near Vernon, in Trumbull County. 
Jason Brown had a very valuable collection of grape-vines, and also of 
choice fruit-trees, which he took np and shipped in boxes at a heavy 
cost. The other two sons held no landed property, but both were 
possessed of some valuable stock (as were also the two first-named) 
derived from that of their father, which had been often noticed by 
liberal premiums, both in the State of New York and also of Ohio. 
The two first-named, John and Jason, both had families. Owen had 
none. Frederick was engaged to be married, and was to return for 
his wife. 

" In consequence of an extreme dearth in 18.54 the crops in North- 
ern Ohio were almost an entire failure; and it was decided by tlie 
four brothers that the two youngest should take the teams and entire 
stock, cattle and horses, and move them to Southwestern Illinois to 
winter, and to have them on early in the spring of 18.55. Tliis was 
done at a very considerable expense, and with some loss of stock to 
John, Jr., some of his best stock having been stolen on the way. 
Tiie wintering of the animals was attended with great expense, and 
with no little suffering to the two youngest brothers, — one of them, 
Owen, being to some extent a cripple from cliildhood by an injury 
of the right arm ; and Fredei'ick, though a very stout man, was sub- 
ject to periodical sickness for many years, attended with insanity. 
It has been stated tliat he was idiotic ; nothing could be more false. 
He had subjected himself to a most (h-eadful surgical operation but 
a short time before starting for Kansas, which had well-nigh cost 
him his life, and was but just through with his confinement when 
he started on his journey, pale and weak. They were obliged to 



I 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 203 

husk corn all winter, out cf doors, in order to obtain fodder for their 
animals. Salmon Brown, a very strong minor son of the family, 
eighteen years old, was sent forvA-ard early in 1855, to assist 
the two last-named, and all three arrived in Kansas early in the 
sprhjg." 

In such patriarchal fashion did the Browns enter the laud 
which they were foreordained to defend. These young men 
were of the true stutf, worthy sons of such a sire ; active, 
enterprising persons, fond of labor, inured to hardship, and 
expecting, as their father had taught them, to earn their 
living with the toil of their own hands. The narrow cir- 
cumstances of the family made it necessary that these young 
men should support themselves somewhere. Love of free- 
dom, love of adventure, and a desire for independence in 
fortune combined to tempt them ; but the father, besides his 
wish to aid them, had constantly in view his main object, 
as the last letter shows. 



More Family Letters. 

Bkownsville, K. T., Nov. 2, 1855. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — We last week re- 
ceived Watson's letter of October 3, too late to answer till now. I 
felt grateful to learn that you were all then well, and I think I fully 
sympathize with you in all the hardships and discouragements you 
have to meet ; but you may be assured you are not alone in having 
trials. I believe I wrote you that we found every one here more or less 
unwell but Wealthy and Johnny, without any sort of a place where 
a stout man even could protect himself from the cutting cold winds 
and storms, which prevail here (the winds, I mean, in particular) much 
more than in any place where we have ever lived ; and that no crops 
of hay or anything raised had been taken care of; with corn wasting 
by cattle and horses, witliout fences ; and, I may add, without any 
meat ; and Jason's folks without sugar, or any kind of breadstuffs but 
corn ground with great labor in a hand-mill about two miles off. Since 
I wrote before. Wealthy, Johnny, Ellen, and myself have escaped 
being sick. Some have had the ague, but lightly ; but Jason and 
Oliver have had a hard time of it, and are yet feeble. They appear 
some better just now. Under existing circumstances we have made 
but little progress ; but we have made a little. We have got a shanty 
three logs high, chinked, and mudded, and roofed with our tent, and 



204 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

a chimney so far advanced tliat we can keep a fire in it for Jason. ^ 
John has his shanty a httle better fixed than it was, but miserable 
enouglanow; and we have got their little crop of beans secured, 
which, together with johnnycake, mush and milk, pumpkins, and 
squashes, ctmstitute our fare. Potatoes they have none of any ac- 
count ; milk, beans, pumpkins, and squashes a very moderate supply, 
just for the present use. We have also got a few house- logs cut for 
Jason. I do not send you this account to render you more unhappy, 
but merely to let you know that those here are not altogether in 
paradise, while you have to stay in that miserable frosty region. 
We had here, October 25, the hardest freezing I ever witnessed south 
of North Elba at that season of the year. 

After all, God's tender mercies are not taken from us, and blessed 
be his name forever ! I believe things will a little brighten here 
before long, and as the winter approaches, and that we may be able 
to send you a more favorable account. There is no proper officer 
before whom a deed can be acknowledged short of Lawrence, and 
Jason and Owen have not been able to go there at all since we got 
here. I want to learn very much whether you have received any 
return from the cattle of Mr. Hurlbut, in Connecticut, so that I may 
at once write him if you have not. I trust you will not neglect this, 
as it takes so long to get letters through, and it will greatly lessen my 
anxiety about your being made in some measure comfortable for the 
winter. We hear that the fall has been very sickly in Ohio and other 
States. I can discover no reason why this country should continue 
sickly, but it has proven exceedingly so this fall. I feel more and 
more confident that slavery will soon die out here, — and to God be 
the praise ! Commendiug you all to his infinite grace, I remain 
Your afi'ectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

To his Family. 

OsAWATOMiR, K. T., Nov. 23, 1855. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — Ruth's letter to Henry, 
saying she was about moving, and dated 23d October (I think), 
was received by last week's mail. We were all glad to learn again 
of your welfare ; and as to your all staying in one house, I can see 
no possible objection, if you can only be well agreed, and try to 

1 His home was a freezing cabin, 
Too bare for the hunjiry rat ; 
Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, 
And bald enough of that. 

Holmes, The Pilgrim's Vision. 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN IvANSAS. 205 

make each other as comfortable as may be. Notliing new of account 
has occurred amongst us since I wrote. Henry, Jason, and Oliver 
are unable to do much yet, but appear to have but little ague now. 
The others are all getting middling well. We have got both families 
so sheltered that they need not suffer hereafter ; have got part of the 
hay (which had lain in cocks) secured ; made some pnigress in prep- 
aration to build a house for John and Owen ; and Salmon has cauglit 
a prairie wolf in the steel trap. We continue to have a good deal of 
stormy weather, — rains with severe winds, and forming into ice as 
they fall, together with cold nights that freeze the ground consider- 
ably. *' Still God has not forsaken us," and we get " day by day 
our daily bread," and I wish we all had a great deal more gratitude 
to mingle with our undeserved blessings. Much suffering would be 
avoided by people settling in Kansas, were tliey aware that they 
would need plenty of warm clothing and light warm houses as much 
as in New Hampshire or Vermont; for such is the fact. 

Since Watson wrote, I have felt a great deal troubled about your 
prospects of a cold liouse to winter in, and since I wrote last I have 
thought of a cheap ready way to help it much, at any rate. Take 
any common straight-edged boards, and run them from the ground 
up to the eaves, barn fashion, not driving the nails in so far but that 
they may easily be drawn, covering all but doors and windows as 
close as may be in that way, and brealdng joints if need be. This 
can be done by any one, and in any weather not very severe, and the 
boards may afterwards be mostly saved for other uses. I think much, 
too, of your widowed state, and I sometimes allow myself to dream a 
little of again some time enjoying the comforts of home ; but I do 
not dare to dream much. May God abundantly reward all your 
sacrifices for the cause of humauity, and a thousandfold more than 
compensate your lack of worldly connections ! We have received two 
newspapers you sent us, which were indeed a great treat, shut away 
as we are from the means of getting the news of the day. Should 
you continue to direct them to some of the boys, after reading, we 
should prize them much. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

These letters disclose the hardships of the first year of 
pioneer life in Kansas, suffered from the elements and nat- 
ural causes alone. Yet the troubles of this family were but 
just begun when the inclemency of the season had been in 
some measure guarded against. The Browns had "located," 
as already mentioned, ten or twelve miles from Osawatomie ; 



206 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

their kinsman Mr. Adair living between them and the 
village. James Hanway, another pioneer, living on the 
Pottawatomie, near Dutch Henry's Crossing, in Franklin 
County, a few miles southeast of Brownsville (which is 
now in the township of Cutler), thus speaks of the loca- 
tion : " On North Middle Creek, on the farm of Mr. Day, 
eight miles southeast of Ottawa, John Brown caused to be 
erected a cabin for the purpose of pre-empting a claim for 
his brother-in-law Mr. Day, the father of the present occu- ' 
pant of the farm ; but I never learned that Brown lived on 
it, for after the month of May, 1856, he was never station- 
ary, but all the time on the war-path, until he left Kansas 
for a season. After the Pottawatomie tragedy occurred, 
the John Brown, Jr., cabin, with a valuable library, was ^ 
burned down by the ruffians. This cabin was located a ' 
short distance south of the Day cabin. The other sons of 
John Brown had claims about one and a half miles south, 
now known as ' Brown's Run.' " The family were therefore 
within a circuit of two miles of each other, and at some dis- 
tance from any other settlers. Their post-office was Osawa- 
tomie; for there was then no town at Ottawa, which is now 
a thriving village, with a third part of the whole county 
population. The township of Pottawatomie, in which the 
Shermans and Doyles lived, was about as far south from 
the Browns as Osawatomie was on the east. 

Scarcely had the Brown family got over the first hard- 
ships of the sickly season and the frosty autumn, when they 
were called npon to arm and muster for the defence of their 
threatened neighbors at Lawrence. The murdering of Free- 
State men had begun (Oct. 25, 1855) with the shooting of 
Samuel Collins at Doniphan by Pat Laughlin, a noisy pro- 
slavery Irishman, who was aided in his attack by three or 
four armed associates. No attempt was made to punish 
Laughlin. Four weeks later, November 21, Charles Dow 
was murdered by Franklin Coleman, a proslavery bully, 
near Hickory Point. The next night, Jacob Branson, a wit- 
ness against Coleman, was arrested by the proslavery sheriff 
Jones, for taking part in a Free-State meeting, contrary to 
the " bogus laws ; " but before Jones and his posse could 
carry their prisoner to the proslavery capital, Lecompton, 



1855] THE BROWN FAMILY IN IvANSAS. 207 

they were waylaid by an equal force of Free-State men, who 
rescued Branson, near Blanton's Bridge, on the very night 
of his arrest. J. R. Kennedy, now of Colorado, has given a 
graphic account of the rescue scene, which I will quote in 
his own words, for the sake of showing what men and what 
events might be heard of at any time in Kansas.^ The date 
is Nov. 22, 1855 ; the men acting on the Free-State side 
were Major James B. Abbott, Captain Philip Hutchinson, 
Philip Hupp, and his son Miner Huj)p, Colonel Samuel N. 
Wood (an Ohio man, six months resident in Kansas), Elmore 
Allen, Edmund Curless, Lafayette Curless, William Hughes, 
Paul Jones, J. R. Kennedy, Collins Holloway, Isaac Shap- 

pet, John Smith, and Smith. The party were waiting 

at Abbott's house at eleven o'clock at night, when the 
chronicle begins. Kennedy says : — 

" While I was standing hy the door, still on the watch, I heard 
Philip Hupp (and no braver man ever Uved) say, ' Well, hoys, I 
tell you what's the matter; they have taken Branson and crossed the 
Wakarusa at Cornelius's Crossing, and have him at old Crane's hotel. 
All we have to do, and what we ought to do, is to march right down 
there, and if Branson is in the house, tell him to come out, — that he 
is a free man, and will he protected.' Just at this time I walked out 
a little from the door, and looking south saw fifteen or twenty mounted 
men riding slowly along the road toward the house. Stepping quiclcly 
back to the door, I caught Major Abbott's eye, and beckoned him to 
come out, which he did. I showed him the men, and exclaiming, 
' That 's the party ! ' he rushed into the house, telling the boys they 

^ Mr. Wilder, the Kansas historian, with the national turn for humor, 
says : "We had a Kansas war here once, — civil, internecine, fratiieidal. 
Some fellow in long hair and buckskin breeches, armed and mounted like 
Jesse James, would ride up to you and kill you because you could read and 
write, and were a Yankee. He controlled the elections in that way for 
several years. Those who fought you at the polls also counted the votes 
after the election. There was a proslavery bully here — name happily for- 
gotten — who made it a business to fight on election day, to knock down 
and drag out, and to keep timid men from the polls. But at one election 
the bully woke up the wrong passenger, — namely, John Lawler, of Ehvood. 
When John came home that night, after taking a square Free-State drink, 
he said he had found the way to carry a Free-State election : ' Break a 
Democratic leg early in the morning.' And that was just what John had 
done." 



208 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

were coining, and to go out quick. Mrs. Abbott handed the boys 
their guns, and they did go out with a rush, Abbott going first, fol- 
lowed by Philip Hupp ; then came Captain Hutchinson, Paul Jones, 
and others. We turned to the left around the corner of the house 
into the road a few rods in front of the horsemen. Phil Hupp vA-as 
the first man who crossed the road. He said afterwards he was 
watching ^he man on the gray horse, Sheriff Jones ; and he did 
watch him, sure enough. Next to Hupp was Paul Jones, and both 
were armed with squirrel rifles. Next came Captain Hutcliinson, 
armed with two large stones ; next were HoUoway and myself, — I 
thinking Captain Hutchinson was a good man to stay with, as he 
had been three years in the Mexican War. The rest of the boys 
ranged along the side of the road near the house. This was about the 
order we occupied when the party approached close to those in the 
road, and very close to those by the side of the road. Mr. Hupp 
being in front, and seeing the boys scattered along from where he was 
to the side of the house, called out, * Boys, what the hell are yon 
doing there ? Here is the place for you.' They then all crowded 
rapidly up in frout of the other party, when one of these said, 
' What 's up '? ' Major Abbott replied, ' That is what we want to 
know/ — which remark was followed by a shot on our side. (The 
Major had a self-cocking revolver, and he liad, in his excitement, 
pulled it a little too hard, causing it to go oft'.) Then the question 
was asked liim again by the other side, ' What 's up "? ' Thinking of 
what Mr. Hupp had said in the house, I said to Major Abbott, ' Ask 
them if Branson is there.' He did so, and the answer was, ' Yes, I 
am here, and a prisoner.' Three or four of our men spoke at once, 
— Major Abbott, Colonel Wood, and others whom I do not remem- 
lier, — saying, ' Come out of that,' or ' Come over to your friends,' 
or perhaps both were said. Branson replied, ' They say they will 
shoot me if I do.' Colonel Sam Wood answered quickly, ' Let 
them shoot and be damned ; we can shoot too.' Branson then said, 
' I will come if tliey do shoot,' starting his mule. (The man who 
was leading it let the halter slip through his hands very quietly.) 
The rest of the proslavery party raised their shot-guns and cocked 
them. Our little crowd raised their guns, and were ready in as 
good time as the others. Sam Wood and two or three of our 
men helped Branson. Wood asked Branson, ' Is this your mule ? ' 
' No,' was the reply, whereupon Wood kicked the mule and said, 
' Go back to your masters, damn you.' In the mean time Branson 
had disappeared, and was seen no more by these brave ' shot-gun ' 
men. 

" About this time some one of them said, ' Why, Sam Wood, you 
are very brave to-night ; you must want to fight.' Colonel Wood 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 209 

replied that he ' was always ready for a fight.' Just at this moment 
ShcrifiF Joues interposed, saying, * There is no use to shed hlood in 
this affair; but it will be settled soon in a way that will not be very 
pleasant to Abolitionists,' and started to ride through those standing 
in the rf)ad. He did not then know old Philip Hupp, but soon made 
his acquaintance ; and I do not think he will be stopped by death any 
quicker than Phil Hupp stopped him that night. Just as soon as 
he started, old Philip set the trigger and cocked his old squirrel rifle 
quicker than he or any other man ever did it before, and said to Sheriff 
Jones, ' Halt ! or I will blow your damned l)rains out in a moment.' 
He stopped, and stayed right there, saying gently to Mr. Hupp, 
* Don't shoot.' There was then a general talk among all hands, and 
we were told about the ' Kansas militia, three thousand strong, that in 
three days' time would wipe that damned Abolition town Law-rence 
out, and corral all the Abolitionists and make pets of them.' How- 
ever, Colonel Sam Wood and others out-talked them so bad that they 
were glad to get away on any terms. Miner Hupp, who wanted to 
square accounts with his two men,^ was prevented from doing so. It 
was not his fault, for he had a ' bead ' on them several times ; but his 
father was watching him all the time after he got Sherifl" Jones in 
shape." 

As the affair, thus described, was the first instance of 
combined and forcible resistance to the usurping authorities 
created by the fraudulent elections of March 30, 1855, it 
was naturally looked upon as very serious by both parties. 
Sheriff Jones (the notorious ruffian who afterward led the 
successful attack on Lawrence in May, 1856) was full of 
wrath and cursing. He rode on with his posse that night to 
a little village near Lawrence, then called Franklin, where 
they decided to appeal both to Wilson Shannon (the drunken 
governor of Kansas, who had superseded Governor Reeder), 
and to Colonel Boone, of Westport, Mo. (Jones's father-in- 
law and a descendant of Daniel Boone), for aid in punishing 
the rebellious Yankees. Jones wrote a despatch to West- 
port, which he sent by a mounted messenger, saying, as the 

1 This alludes to a previous saying of young Hupp, that he "wanted to 
square accounts with two of the posse that had threatened and abused him 
a day or two before, and was afraid the ball would be over before he got 
there." The above account is part of a letter written by Kennedy from 
Colorado Springs, where he was living in 1879, and may not he minutely 
accurate ; but it is the best I have seen. 

14 



210 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOIiN BROWN. [1855 

man rode off, "That man is taking my despatch to Mis- 
souri, and, by God ! I will have revenge before I see Missouri 
again." Being reminded that he had not notified his offi- 
cial superior Governor Shannon, he next sent a message to 
him at the Shawnee Mission by one Hargous, who was an 
accessory to the murder of Dow two days before. Mean- 
time the Free-State men were not idle. They held a public 
meeting, November 27, at Lawrence, at which Branson the 
rescued prisoner spoke, telling the story of his friend's 
murder and his own arrest. Dow, he said, was a mild and 
peaceable young man, esteemed by those who knew him, — an 
immigrant from Ohio, who was boarding at Branson's house. 
Coleman had repeatedly threatened to kill him, and on the 
morning of the 21st, when Dow went on some errand to the 
blacksmith's shop, Bi-anson advised him to take his gun, 
but Dow did not. On his return to Branson's, and when a 
few steps from the shop, hearing the click of a gun, he turned 
round, and received in his breast the charge of a double- 
barrelled shot-gun loaded with slugs. This happened about 
one o'clock ; and the body was left lying by the side of the 
road where he fell until sundown, when some of the acces- 
sories sent word to Branson "that a dead body was lying by 
the roadside." He had begun to fear some ill had befallen 
his friend, and at once recognizing the body, conveyed it to 
his house. Coleman then took refuge with Governor Shan- 
non at the Shawnee Mission, and was nominally arrested by 
Jones, who was serving as sheriff of Douglas County in Kan- 
sas, while living at Westport, and acting postmaster there. 
Branson had taken no part in the affair; but the next morn- 
ing a proslavery justice at Lawrence, named Cameron, issued 
a " peace-warrant " against Branson on the complaint of a 
proslavery neighbor at Hickory Point, where the murder 
occurred. That evening, after Branson had gone to bed with 
his family, Sheriff Jones, with a party of mounted men, rode 
up to his lone cabin upon the prairies, a half-mile from 
neighbors, knocked at the door, and to the question " Who 
is there ? " replied, " A friend." " Come in then ; " and 
the little cabin was at once full of rough, savage, armed 
men. Jones went to the bedside, and, presenting his 
pistol to Branson's breast, said, " You are my prisoner." 



185J.J THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 211 

Branson asked, " By what authority ? " Oaths, and the 
threat " I will blow you through," were the only an- 
swer ; the ruffians, with guns cocked, gathered round, and 
took him prisoner, — an innocent, defenceless man, kid- 
na[)ped from his home and family by a gang of twenty- 
five half-drunken men, showing no papei'S of arrest, and 
answering witli oaths and threats of death any question of 
their authority. 

Such was the story told by Branson and the other speak- 
ers at the Lawrence meeting. Branson, a plain elderly 
farmer, "of quiet and modest deportment," says Mrs. Robin- 
son,^ then went on to say, " with tears at times stealing down 
his weather-beaten cheeks," that he had been requested by 
some friends to leave Lawrence, to seek some other place of 
safety, so that no excuse could be given to the enemy for an 
attack upon Lawrence. He said he would go, — Lawrence 
should not be involved in difficulty on his account ; if it was 
the decision of the majority, he would go to his home, and 
die there, and be buried by the side of his friend. This 
statement was met by cries of " No ! no ! " The principal 
speakers after Branson were Grosvenor P. Lowry, a young 
lawyer from Pennsylvania, who proposed a committee of 
ten for the common defence ; Colonel Wood, who had taken 
part in the rescue ; and Martin F. Conway (born in Maryland 
in 1828), who had emigrated to Kansas in October, 1854, 
and had resigned his seat in the fraudulent Territorial 
Council of 1855.^ 

What Mr. Co)iway said had much weight, as coming from 
the best lawyer in Kansas. He advised them to move cau- 
tiously, but boldly, having a care to take every step properly. 
They had ignored and repudiated the Legislature at the 
Shawnee Mission: they would never give their allegiance 

1 Kansas : Its Exterior and Interior Life, pp. 105-110. 

2 Mr. Conway was among the ablest of the men who made Kansas a free 
State, and was a steady friend of John Brown. He liad been bred a Demo- 
crat, and was a protege of Henry May, a Democratic Congressman from 
Baltimore, but was hostile to slavery, and a radical in his construction of 
the Constitution and laws. He was chosen Chief-Justice of Kansas under 
the Topeka Constitution, and was the first Congressman from the State. 
He died at Washington in 1883. 



212 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

to such a monstrous iniquity. To the United States author- 
ities, to the organic act, to the courts created under it, and 
to the judges and marshals appointed by the President, they 
wouhl yield obedience. These might oppress them, but they 
would submit, and seek redress for grievances at the United 
States Supreme Court, which would give them a fair hear- 
ing.^ He did not dissuade them from defending their rights 
and insisting on all the safeguards of the law. Fortunately, 
however, the friends of Kansas in New England and New 
York had not suffered their emigrants to rely wholly upon 
what proved to be a broken reed, — the protection of the 
courts. Notwithstanding the protest of Mr. Amos Law- 
rence and others before the Congressional Investigating 
Committee of May and June, 1856, that " the Emigrant Aid 
Company had never invested a dollar in cannon or rifles, in 
powder or lead, or in any of the implements of war," the 
truth is, that the officers and agents of this company (and 
Mr. Lawrence among the foremost) raised money and pur- 
chased arms, which were sent to Kansas in May, 1855, in 
August, 1855, and at other times. The chief agent of this 
company in Kansas was Charles Robinson, who despatchecJ 
G. W. Deitzler to Massachusetts in April, 1855, to obtain 
weapons, and again sent Major Abbott (already mentioned 
as the leader in the rescue of Branson) in July for the same 
purpose. Robinson gave Abbott a letter to Eli Thayer, 
the originator of the Emigrant Aid Company, in which he 
told Mr. Thayer that " the rifles in Lawrence [the so-called 
' Beecher Bibles '] have had a very good effect, and I 
think the same kind of instruments in other places would 
do more to save Kansas than almost anything else." This 
was John Brown's opinion also, as was shown by his start- 
ing for Kansas at that time with a supply of weapons. Mr. 
Branscomb, a Boston agent of the Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, indorsed Robinson's suggestion, and ''cheerfully rec- 
ommended Mr. J. B. Abbott to the public," under date of 

^ Judge Conway then supposed — wliat the events of the next year sadly 
disproved by Taney's atrocious Dred Scott decision — that the court of Mar- 
shall and Story would decree justice, and not hasten to make itself the mere 
tool of the slave-power, as Pierce and Buchanan were. In fact, the United 
States Court in Kansas anticipated Taney in this submission. 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 213" 

August 10, 1855. Mr. Laurence, vice-president of the com- 
pany, on the next day (August 11) wrote to Major Abbott 
at Hartford, Conn, (where Sharpe's rifles were then made), 
as follows : — 

" Request Mr. Palmer to have one hundred Sharpe's rifles packed 
in casks, like hardware, and to retain them subject to my order ; also 
to send the bill to me by mail. I will pay it either with my note, 
according to the terms agreed on between him and Dr. Webb,^ or in 
cash, less interest at seven per cent per annum." 

August 20. 

This instalment of carbines is far from being enough, and I hope 
the measures you are takiug wUl be followed up until every organized 
company of trusty men in the Tenitory shall be supplied. Dr. 
Cabot ^ will give me the names of any geutlemen here who subscribe 
money, and the amount, of which I shall keep a memorandum, and 
promise them that it shall be repaid, either in cash or rifles, whenever 
it is settled that Kansas shall not be a province of Missouri. There- 
fore keep them in capital order, and, above all, take good care that 
they do not fall into the hands of the Missouriuns after you once get 
them into use. You must dispose of these uhere they will do the 
most good; and for this purpose you should advise with Dr. Robin- 
son and Mr. Pomeroy.^ 

August 24. 

The rifles ought to be on the way. Have you forwarded them ? 
How much money have you received f The Topeka people wUl 
require half of these. 

1 Secretary of the Emigrant Aid Company, and a devoted friend of free 
Kansas. 

2 Samuel Cabot, Jr., M.D., a noted surgeon in Boston, and one of the 
most active in raising money for rifles and other material aid to the Kansas 
farmers in 1855-57. He has preserved a Hst of the subscribers to the 
arms fund, which the historian of Kansas should print in his volume. 

^ In view of these manly letters of Mr. Lawrence, his statements to the 
Massachusetts Historical Society (May 8, 1S84) in praise of the peaceful 
character of Charles Eobinson are very grotesque. Mr. Lawrence then 
said : " Charles Robinson never hore arms, nor omitted to do whatever he 
considered to be his duty. He sternly held the people to their loyalty to the 
Government, against the arguments and the example of the ' higher law ' 
men, who v;ere ahvnys armed." One of these "higher law " men was ^lajor 
Abbott, who rescued Branson contrary to law, and who was armed by Mr. 
Lawrence himself, at the urgent request of Robinson ! Sad is the efl"ect 
of time on the human memory. 



•214 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

lu presenting these letters of Robinson and Lawrence to 
the Kansas Historical Society in 1882, Major Abbott said, 
among other things : " I went to the Emigrant Aid folks in 
Boston, and to Amos A. Lawrence, who immediately gave 
the money for the purchase of one hundred Sharpe's rifles. 
His action and these letters show what a friend of Kansas 
he was at that early period, and how quick he was to com- 
prehend the character of the struggle into which we had 
been precipitated. When I reached home, the latter part 
of September, 1 found the rifles, whicli I had sent ahead of 
me, at Lawrence, and ready for use. The howitzer came 
later, but was in time to be brought to the defence of Law- 
rence at the invasion in December, 1855, the pretence for 
which was the rescue of Branson, — which rescue, as it 
happened, I had a hand in." To meet this invasion Robin- 
son was made a major-general, and in that caj)acity commis- 
sioned John Brown as captain,.^ 

The story of the arms earlier sent out by the "Emigrant 
Aid folks " may here be given as told by General Deitzler 
and the Rev. Edward E. Hale in 1879. General Deitzler 
said : — 

" Some six weeks after my arrival in the Territory, and only a few 
days after the Territorial election of March 30, 1855, at which time 

^ The position of Robinson towards Major Abbott and the rescuers of 
Branson may be inferred from the fact that they reported at Robinson's 
house, ten miles from" Elan ton's Bridge, before sunrise, November 23, tlie 
day after the affair. Mrs. Robinson thus tells the story in her book : "The 
slight form of the leader stood a little nearer the door ; and when his pecu- 
liarly dry manner of speech fell upon the ear in his brief inquir)', ' Is Dr. 
R. in ?' his identity was also known. The Doctor opened the door and 
invited them in. The fact of the rescue was stated, and I\Ir. Branson, be- 
ing in the ranks, was ordered to 'step forward and tell his story,' which 
he did with much feeling, and with the appearance of a person who is 
heart-broken. 1 shall never forget the appearance of the men in simple 
citizen's dress, some armed and some unai-med, standing in unbroken line, 
just visible in the breaking light of a November morning. This little band 
of less than twenty men had, through the cold and upon the frozen ground, 
walked ten miles since nine o'clock of the previous evening. Mr. Branson — 
a large man, of fine proportions — stood a little forward of the line, with his 
head slightly bent, which an old straw hat hardly protected from the cold, 
looking as though, in his hurry of departure from home in charge of tlie 
ruffianly men, he took whatever came first." 



I 



I 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 215 

Kansas was invaded by an armed force from the Southern States and 
the actual Free- State settlers were driven from the polls, Governor 
Charles Robinson requested me to visit Boston with a view to secur- 
ing arms for our people, to which I assented. Preparations were 
quickly and quietly made, and no one knew of the object of my mis- 
sion except Governor Robinson and Joel Grover. At Worcester I 
presented my letter from Governor Robinson to Mr. Eli Thayer, just 
as he was leaving his Oread Home for the morning Boston train. 
Within an hour after our arrival in Boston, the Executive Committee 
of the Emigrant Aid Society held a meeting, and delivered to me 
an order for (me hundred Sharpe's rilles, and I started for home on 
Monday morning. The boxes were marked ' Books.' I took the 
precaution to have the (cap) cones removed from the guns, and car- 
ried them in my carpet-sack, whicli would have been missing in the 
event of the capture of the guns by the enemy. On the Missouri 
River I met John and Joseph L. Speer for the first time. They did 
not know me, but may remember the exciting incidents at Boone- 
ville and other points along the river. I arrived at Lawrence 
with the 'Beecher Bibles' several days before the special election 
in April, called by Governor Reeder. But no guns were needed 
upon that occasion, as the ruffians ignored said election; and when 
the. persons elected upon that day presented their credentials at 
Pawnee, they \vere kicked out without ceremony. ... It was 
perhaps the first shipment of arms for our side ; and it incited a 
healthy feeling among the unarmed Free-State settlers, which 
permeated and energized them until even the Quakers were ready 
to fight."! 

Mr. Hale gave his recollections as follows : — 

" In the spring of 1855 my friend Mr. Deitzler came on in haste to 
New England, to say that fighting was certain, and that you must 
have more weapons. The breech -loading rifle was then a new and 
costly arm. It was then that we gave to the Sharpe's Rifle Com- 
pany the first of a series of orders which became historical. In the 
next year Henry Ward Beecher won the nickname which he has 
never lost, ' Sharpe's Rifle Beecher ; ' and I fancy there is no nickname 
of which he is more proud. With your permission I will read the 
answer of the company to that order, and then I will ask our friend 
Mr. Adams to accept that letter as an historical document for his 
Society." ' 



1 Kansas Mpmorial, 1879, pp. 18i, 185. 

2 Ibid., p. 147. 



216 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

Shakpe's Eifle Manufactuking Co., 
Haktfoud, May 7, 1855. 

Dear Sir, — Annexed find invoice of one hundred carbines, aui- 
muuition, etc., delivered Mr. Deitzler this morning. For bahiuce of 
account, I have ordered on Messrs. Lee, Higgiuson, & Co., at thirty 
days from this date, for $2,155.65, as directed by you. We shall be 
pleased to receive further orders from you, and will put up arms at 
our lowest cash prices to the trade, with interest added for time. The 
sample carbine for your use shall go forward immediately. Our 
negotiations with you I trust will be entirely confidential, as the trade 
in Boston and elsewhere might take offence if they understood that 
we had made you better terms than we grant to others. 
Your obedient servant, 

J. C. Palmer, Pres. 
Thos. H. AVebb, Esq. 

Dr. Webb was then, and continued to be, the secretary of 
the Emigrant Aid Company ; and when Mr. Hale said " we," 
he meant the managers of that company, whose best title to 
the gratitude of Kansas and the nation is this very gift of 
arms to the emigrants, without which the invasion of Law- 
rence in December, 1855, could not have been met. This 
invasion was made under a proclamation issued by Governor 
Shannon, November 29. calling out the "Kansas militia." 
He meant thereby the Missouri men, as appears by an early 
message sent from "Woodson, the governor's secretary, to a 
proslavery commander at Leavenworth, named Eastin, who 
had been appointed by the usurping Legislature to be gen- 
eral of the Territorial militia. 

(Prwate.) 

Dear General, — Tlie Governor has called out the militia, and 
you will hereby organize your division, and proceed forthwith to 
Lecompton. As the Governor has no power, you may call out the 
Platte Rifle Company. They are always ready to help us. What- 
ever you do, do not implicate the Governor. 

Daniel Woodson. 

On the same day (November 27) a despatch was sent from 
Westport to the capital of Missouri in these words : — 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 217 

Hon. E. C. McClarem, Jefferson City, — Governor Shannon has 
ordered out the militia against Lawrence. They are now in open 
rebellion against the laws. Jones is in danger. 

From another border town in Missouri, this despatch was 
sent : — 

Weston, Mo., November 30. 
The greatest excitement continues to exist in Kansas. The offi- 
cers have been resisted by the mobocrats, and the interposition of the 
militia has been called for. A secret letter from Secretary Woodson 
to General Eastin has been written, in which the writer requests 
General Eastin to call for the Rifle Company at Platte City, Mo., 
so as not to compromise Governor Shannon. Four hundred men 
from Jackson County are now en route for Douglas County, K. T. 
St. Joseph and Weston are requested to furnish each the same num- 
ber. The people of Kansas are to be subjugated at all hazards. 

The invasion took place, and resulted in threats on the 
Missouri side, fortifications and drilling on the Lawrence 
side ; and finally this little " Wakarusa war " was ended by 
a treaty with Shannon, who conceded all that the Free-State 
men had asked. Brown and his family rallied to the de- 
fence of their neighbors and their cause, and were said to 
be the best-armed men that came forward for service. They 
were mustered in as Kansas militia ; John Brown was made 
captain, and his son John lieutenant, in the Osawatomie 
company. His own report of this affair is as follows : — 

brown's first campaign : the wakarusa war, 

OsAWATOxMiE, K. T., Dec. 16, 1855. 
Sabbath Evening. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — I improve the first 
mail since my return from the camp of volunteers, who lately turned 
out for the defence of the town of Lawrence in this Territory ; and not- 
withstanding I suppose you have learned the result before this (pos- 
sibly) , will give a brief account of the invasion in my own way. 

About three or four weeks ago news came that a Free-State man 
by the name of Dow had been murdered by a proslavery man by 
the name of Coleman, who had gone and given himself up for trial to 
the proslavery Governor Shannon. This was soon followed by fur- 
ther news that a Free-State man who was the only reliable witness 



218 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

against the murderer had been seized by a Missnurian (appointed 
sheriff by the boijjus Legishiture of Kansas) upon false pretexts, ex- 
amined, and held to bail under such heavy bonds, to answer to those 
false charges, as he could not give ; that while on his way to trial, 
in charge of the bogus sheriff, he was rescued by some men belong- 
ing to a company near Lawrence; and that in consequence of the 
rescue Governor Shannon had ordered out all the proslavery force he 
could muster in the Territory, and called on Missouri for further help ; 
that about two thousand had collected, demanding a surrender of the 
rescued witness and of the rescuers, the destruction of several build- 
ings and printing-presses, and a giving up of the Sharpe's rifles by 
the Free-State men, — threatening to destroy the town with cannon, 
with which they were provided, etc. ; that about an equal number of 
Free-State men had turned out to resist thein, and that a battle was 
hourly expected or supposed to have been already fought. 

Tliese reports appeared to be well authenticated, but we could get 
no further ac(;ount of matters ; and I left this for the place where the 
boys are settled, at evening, intending to go to Lawrence to learn 
the facts the next day. John was, however, started on horseback ; 
but before he had gone many rods, word came that our help was im- 
mediately wanted. On getting this last news, it was at once agreed 
to break up at John's camp, and take Wealthy and Johnny to Jason's 
cam] I (some two miles off), and that all the men but Henry, Jason, 
and Oliver should at once set ofi' for Lawrence under arms; those 
three being wholly unfit for duty. We theu set about providing a little 
corn-bread and meat, blankets, and cooking utensils," running bullets 
and loading all our guns, pistols, etc. The five set off in the after- 
noon, and after a short rest in the niglit (which was quite dark), con- 
tinued our march until after daylight next morning, when we got our 
breakfast, started again, and reached Lawrence in the forenoon, all of 
us more or less lamed by our tramp. On reaching the place we found 
that negotiations had commenced between Governor Shannon (having 
a force of some fifteen or sixteen hundred men) and the principal 
leaders of the Free-State men, they having a force of some five hun- 
dred men at that time. These were busy, night and day, fortifying 
the town with embankments and circular earthworks, up to the time 
of the treaty with the G(Jvernor, as an attack was constantly looked 
for, notwithstanding the negotiations then pendin;?. This state of 
things continued from Friday until Sunday evening.^ On the even- 
ing we left Osavvatomie a company of tlie invaders, of from fifteen to 
twenty-five, attacked some three or four Free-State men, mostly un- 
armed, killing a ^Ir. Barber from Ohio, wholly unarmed. His body 
was afterward brought in and lay for some days in the room after- 
^ December 7-9. 



I 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN IvANSAS. 219 

ward occupied by a part of the company to which we belong (it being 
organized after we reached Lawrence). The building was a large 
untinished stone hotel, in which a great part of the volunteers were 
quartered, who witnessed the scene of bringing in the wife and other 
friends of the murdered man. I will only say of this scene that it was 
heart-rending, and calculated to exasperate the men exceedingly, and 
one of the sure results of civil war. 

After frequently calling on the leaders of the Free- State men to 
come and have an interview with him, by Governor Shannon, and 
after as often getting for an answer that if he had any business to 
transact with any one in Lawrence, to come and attend to it, he 
signified his wish to come into the town,^ and an escort was sent to 
the invaders' camp to conduct him in. When there, the leading Free- 
State men, finding out his weakness, frailty, and consciousness of the 
awkward circumstances into which he had really got himself, took 
advantage of his cowardice and folly, and by means of that and the 
free use of whiskey and some trickery succeeded in getting a written 
arrangement with him much to their own liking. He stipulated with 
them to order the proslavery men of Kansas home, and to prciclaim 
to the Missouri invaders that they must quit the Territory without 
delay, and also to give up General Pomeroy (a prisoner in their 
camp), — which was all done; he also recognizing the volunteers as 
the militia of Kansas, and empowering their officers to call them out 
whenever in their discretion the safety of Lawrence or other portions 
of the Territory might require it to be done. He (Governor Shan- 
non) gave up all pretension of further attempt to enforce the enact- 
meiits of the bogus Legislature, and retired, subject to the derision 
and scoffs of the Free-State men (into whose hands he had committed 
the welfare and protection of Kansas), and to the pity of some and 
the curses of others of the invading force. 

So ended this last Kansas invasion, — the Missourians returning 
with flying colors, after incurring heavy expenses, suffering great ex- 
posure, hardships, and privations, not having fought any battles, 
burned or destroyed any infant towns or Abolition presses ; leaving 
the Free-State men organized and armed, and in full possession of 
the Territory; not having fulfilled any of all their dreadful threaten- 
ings, except to murder one unarmed man, and to commit some rob- 
beries and waste of property upon defenceless families, unfortunately 
within their power. We learn by their papers that they boast of a 
great victory over the Abolitionists ; and well they may.^ Free-State 

1 December 7, 8. 

' Brown seerus to have been divided in mind concerning this treaty with 
Shannon, at first denouncing it strongly, as well as the manner of making 



220 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

men have only hereafter to retain the footing they have gained, 
and Kansas is free. Yesterday the people passed upon the Free- 
State constitution. The result, though not yet known, no one 
doubts. 

One little circumstance, connected with our own number, showing 
a little of the true character of those invaders : On our way, about 
three miles from Lawrence, we had to pass a bridge (with our arms 
and ammunition) of which the invaders held possession ; but as the 
five of us had each a gun, with two large revolvers in a belt exposed 
t(j view, with a third in liis pocket, and as we moved directly on to 
the bridge without making any halt, they for some reason suffered 
us to pass without interruption, notwithstanding there were some 
fifteen to twenty- five (as variously reported) stationed in a log-house 
at oufc end of the bridge. We could not count them. A boy on our 
approach ran and gave them notice. Five others of our company, 
well armed, who followed us some miles behind, met with equally 
civil treatment the same day. After we left to go to Lawrence, 
until we returned when disbanded, I did not see the least sign of 
cowardice or want of self-possession exhibited by any volunteer of 
the eleven companies who constituted the Free-State force ; and I 
never expect again to see an equal number of such well-behaved, 

it, and afterward seeing the respite it gave tlie Kansas farmers to make 
good their position. Mr. E. A. Coleman writes nie : "When Lawrence 
was besieged, we sent runners to all parts of the Territory, calling on every 
settler. We met at Lawrence. Robinson was commander-iii-cliief ; I was 
on his staff, appointed of course by order of the commander. We had gath- 
ered to the number of about two hundred and fifty, all told. The ruffians 
were gathered at Franklin, four miles east, with four or five hundred men. 
We were not well armed, all of us, — at the same time being somewliat 
afraid of getting into trouble with the General Government. Robinson sent 
to Shannon, at Leeonipton, to come down and see it soTnething could not 
be done to prevent bloodshed. He came ; we all knew his weakness. We 
had plenty of brandy, parleyed with him until lie was drunk, and then he 
agreed to get the ruffians to go home, — which he did by telling them we 
had agreed to obey all the laws, which was a He. As soon as Brown heard 
what had been done, he came with his sons into our council-room, the 
maddest man I ever saw. He told Robinson that what he had done was 
all a farce ; that in less than six months the Missourians would find out 
the deception, and things would be worse than they were that day (and 
so it was) ; that he came up to help them fight, but if that was the way 
Robinson meant to do, not to send for him again." Mr. Foster, of Osa- 
watomie, meeting Brown on his return from Lawrence, asked him about 
Robinson and Lane. "They are both men without principle," said Brown ; 
" hut when worst comes to worst, Lane will fight, — and there is no fight in 
Robinson." ' 



1855.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 221 

cool, determined men, — fully, as I believe, sustaining the high char- 
acter of the Revolutionary fathers. But enough of this, as we intend 
to send you a paper giving a more full account of the affair. We 
have cause for gratitude in that we all returned safe and well, with 
the exception of hard colds, and found those left behind rather 
improving. 

We have received fifty dollars from father, and learu from him 
that he has sent you the same amount, — for which we ought to be 
grateful, as we are much relieved, both as respects ourselves and you. 
The mails have been kept back during the invasion, but we hope to 
hear from you again soon. Mr. Adair's folks are well, or nearly so. 
Weather mostly pleasant, but sometimes quite severe. No snow of 
account as yet. Can think of but little more to-night. 

Monday Morning^ December 17. 
The ground for the first time is barely whitened with snow, and it is 
quite cold ; but we have before had a good deal of cold weather, with 
heavy rains. Henry and Oliver and, I may [say], Jason were disap- 
pointed in not being able to go to war. The disposition at both our 
camps to turn out was uniform. I believe I have before acknowl- 
edged the receipt of a letter from you and Watson. Have just taken 
one from the office for Henry that I think to be from Ruth. Do 
write often, and let me know ail about how you get along through 
the winter. May God abundantly bless you all, and make you 
faithful. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. ^ 

1 Soon after this "Wakarusa war," and perhaps in consequence of his 
service therein, Brown became the owner of one small share in the Emigrant 
Aid Company, as appears by this certificate : — 

No. 638. Boston, Jan. 15, 1856. 

This is to certify that John Brown, Lawrence, K. T., is pvoprietor of one share, of 
the par value of twenty dollars each, in the capital stock of the New England Emisrrant 
Aid Company, transferable on the books of said Company, on the suixender of this 
certificate. 

John M. S. Williams, Vice-President. 
Thomas H. Webb, Secretary. 

■ This paper is indorsed, in John Brown's handwriting, " Emigrant Aid 
Co., Certificate," and was found among his papers after his death. He 
derived no profit from it, as indeed was the case with the other sharehold- 
ers ; but it perhaps gave him some standing among his Kansas neigh- 
bors to have even this connection with a corporation supposed to be very 
rich. 



222 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

During this arctic winter Brown wrote as follows to the 
family at North Elba, where it was still more arctic : — 

John Broicn to his Family. 

CsAWATOMiE, K. T., Feb. 1, 1856. 

Dear Wife axd Children, every one, —Yours and Watson's 
letters to the boys and myself, of December 30 and January 1, were 
received by last mail. We are all very glad to hear again of your 
welfare, and I am particularly grateful when I am noticed by a letter 
from yon. I have just taken out two letters for Henry [Thompson], 
one of which, I suppose, is from Ruth. Salmon and myself are so 
far on our way home from Misst)uri, and only reached Mr. Adair's 
last night. They are all well, and we know of nothing but all are 
well at the boys' shanties. The weather continues very severe, and 
it is now nearly six weeks that the snow has been almost constantly 
driven, like dry sand, by the fierce winds of Kansas. Mr. Adair lias 
been collecting ice of late from the Osage* liiver, which is nine and 
a half inches thick, of perfect clear solid ice, formed under the 
snow. By means of the sale of our horse and wagon, our present 
wants are tolerably well met, so that, if health is continued to us, we 
shall not probably suffer much. The idea of again visiting those of 
my dear family at North Elba is so calculated to unman me, that I 
seldom allow my thoughts to dwell upon it, and I do not tliink best 
to write much about it ; suffice it to say, that God is ahiindanthj 
able to keep both us and you, and in him let us all trust. We have 
just learned of some new and shocking outrages at Leavenworth, and 
that the Free-State people there have fled "to Lawrence, which 
place is again threatened with an attack. Should that take place, 
we may soon ac^ain be called upon to " buckle on our armor," wliich 
by the help of God we will do, — when T suppose Henry and Oliver 
will have a chance. My judgment is, that we shall have no general 
disturbance until \\'armer weather. T have more to say, but not time 
now to say it ; so farewell for this time. Write ! 
Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Orawatomie, K. T., Feb. 6, 1856. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — ... Thermometer 
on Sunday and Monday at twenty-eight to twenty-nine below zero. 
Tee in the river, in the timber, and under the snow, eighteen inches 
thick this M'eek. On our return to where the boys live we found 
Jason again down with the ague, but he was some better yesterday. 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 223 

Oliver was also laid up by freezing his toes, — one great toe so badly 
frozen that the nail has come off. He will be crippled for some days 
yet. Owen has one foot some frozen. We have middling tough 
times (as some would call them), but have enough to eat, and abun- 
dant reasons for the most unfeigned gratitude. It is likely that when 
the snow goes off, such high water will prevail as will render it diffi- 
cult for Missouri to invade the Territory ; so that God by his elements 
may protect Kansas for some time yet. . . . Write me as to all your 
wants for the coming spring and summer. I hope you will all be led 
to seek God " with your wliole heart: " and I pray him, in his mercy, 
to be found of you. All mail coinuiunicatious are entirely cut off by 
the snowdrifts, so that we get no news whatever this week. . . . 

OsAWATOMiE, K. T., Feb. 20, 1856. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — Your letter to 
Salmon, and Ruth's to Heury and Ellen, of 6th and IGtIi January, 
were received by last week's mail. This week we get neither letter 
nor paper from any of you. I need not continually repeat that we 
are always glad to hear frum you, and to learn of your welfare. I 
wish that to be fully understood. Salmon and myself are here again, 
<.»n our way back from Missouri, where we have been for corn, — as 
what the boys had raised was used up, stock and families having to 
live on it mainly while it lasted. We had to pay thirty cents per 
bushel for corn. Salmon has had the ague again, while we have 
been gone, and had a hard shake yesterday. To-day is his well day. 
We found Henry and Frederick here helping Mr. Adair ; and I have 
been helping also yesterday and to-day. Those behind wei-e as well 
as usual a day or two since. I have but little to write this time, 
except to tell you about the weather, and to complain of the almost 
lack of news from the United States. We are very anxious to 
know what Congress is doing. We hear that Frank Pierce means 
to crush the men of Kansas. I do not know how well he may suc- 
ceed ; but I think he may find his liauds full before it is all over. 
For a few days the snow has melted a little, and it begins to seem 
like early March in Ohio. I have agreed either to buy the line- 
backed cow of Henry, or to pay five dollars for the use of her and 
keep her a year, whichever may hereafter appear best ; so that, if 
she lives, you can calculate on the use of her. I have also written 
Mr. Hurlbut, of Connecticut, further in regard to the cattle, and 
think you will soon hear something from him. No more now. May 
God Almighty bless you and all good friends at North Elba ! 
Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 



224 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Brown seems to have written about this time to his 
former representative in Congress, Mr. Giddings of Ohio, 
to inquire the purpose of the Government, and was thus 
answered : — 

Hall of Representatives, U. S., 
March 17, 1856. 

My dear Sir, — We shall do all we can, but we are iu a minor- 
ity, and are dependent on the " Know Nothings" ^ for aid to effect 
anything, and they are iu a vei'y doubtful position ; we know not how 
tliey will act. All I can say is, we shall try to relieve you. In the 
mean time you need have no fear of the troops. The President never 
will dare employ the troops of the United States to shoot the citi- 
zens of Kansas. The death of the first man by the troops will in- 
volve every free State in your own fate. It tcill light up the fires of 
civil war throughout the North, and toe shall stand or fall with you. 
Such an act will also bring the President so deep in infamy that the 
hand of political resurrection will never reach him. Your safety de- 
pends on the supply of men and arms and money which will move 
forward to your relief as soon as the spring opens. ' I am confident 
there will be as many people in Kansas next winter as can be sup- 
plied with provisions. I may be mistaken, but I feel confident there 
will be no war in Kansas. 

Very respectfully, 

J. R. Giddings. 

John Buown, Esq. 

In this last prediction Mr. Giddings was wide of the 
mark ; for within two months from the time this letter 
reached Kansas, the Territory was again invaded, Lawrence 
was captured and pillaged, and the Pottawatomie execu- 
tions had taken place. These events had been preceded by 
many others, which can here be noticed only briefly, though 
they were of great importance. An election had been held, 
Jan. 15, 1856, for State officers and a Legislature, under 
the Free-State constitution adopted at Topeka in 1855. At 
some points in Kansas, particularly at Leavenworth, the 
usurping proslavery men forbade this election ; and an ad- 
journed election was held for that county at Easton (a few 
miles northwest of Leavenworth and near Kiekapoo, where 
that infamous Border-Ruffian military company, the " Kiek- 
apoo Rangers," had their headquarters) on the 17th of 

1 A political party (the "Native Americans ") so designated. 



I 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 225 

January. That night, very late, while a Free-State man 
named Sparks was returning home with his sons, he was 
surrounded by the ruffians, and rescued by R. P. Brown 
(no relative of John Brown), who was a leader of the Free- 
State men in Leavenworth County, and a member elect of 
the Topeka Legislature, as Sparks also was. The next morn- 
ing, as Brown, with seven other Free-State men, — among 
whom was Henry J. Adams, afterward Mayor of Leaven- 
worth, — was returning to his home, about half-way between 
Easton and Leavenworth, and near Kickapoo, he was sur- 
rounded by a force of fifty men or more, all armed, and 
some of them drunk, who took them prisoners. The 
drunken ruffians tried to kill the Free-State men, but were 
prevented by their leaders, among whom were several per- 
sons holding Territorial or United States office. The pris- 
oners were carried by this howling mob back to Easton ; but 
Brown was separated from them. A rope was purchased 
and shown to the prisoners, who were threatened with 
hanging. Unwilling that all these men should be murdered, 
Martin, the Kickapoo captain, allowed Adams and the other 
prisoners to escape. Adams hastened to Fort Leavenworth 
in hopes of getting United States troops to rescue Brown, 
but was refused. Meantime Brown had surrendered his 
arms, and was helpless. His enemies, who dared not face 
him the night before, though they had a superior force, 
crowded around him ; and one of the " Rangers," a drunken 
wretch named Gibson, inflicted the fatal blow, — a large 
hatchet gash in the side of the head, penetrating the skull 
and brain. The gallant man fell, while his enemies jumped 
on him and kicked him. Desperately wounded, he said, 
" Don't abuse me ! it is useless ; I am dying." One of the 
mob (afterward United States deputy marshal) stooped 
over the prostrate man, and spat tobacco juice in his eyes. 
Finally a few of the ruffians, whom a little spark of con- 
science or fear of punishment animated, raised the dying 
man, still groaning, and placing him in a wagon, in a cold 
winter day, drove him to the grocery, where they dressed 
his wounds ; but seeing the hopelessness of his case they 
took him home to his wife, to whom he said, " I have 
been murdered by a gang of cowards in cold blood." 

16 



226 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. 



fl85G. 



To one of the neighbors who came to Brown's house at 
three o'clock on the morning of January 19, and found him 
lying on the floor soaked in blood, the murdered man said, 
" I am dying, but in a good cause." " I sat down," says 
this neighbor, " took his head upon my lap, and examined 
the wound in his head ; opened his vest, but found no other 
wound. He raised apparently from one side, as if he 
wanted to turn over, exclaimed, ' I am dying,' and imme- 
diately died, with his head on my lap. Charles Dunn [a 
Border-Euffian ' captain,' who brought Brown home] told 
me that after receiving the wound Brown had made his 
escape, fled to the woods, had been caught and brought 
back, and that he [Dunn] had been instrumental in keeping 
them from shooting or hanging him. Dunn was at that 
time very much intoxicated." 

The offence that this murdered man had committed was, 
first, voting ; second, defending the ballot-box from drunken 
ruffians who tried to break up the election ; and, finally, with 
fifteen men, rescuing his neighbor Sparks from twenty or 
thirty of these ruffians. A proslavery man of the better 
class, Pierce Rivel}^, who kept a store near Brown's farm 
in " Salt Creek Valley." testified before the Congressional 
Committee, four months later : " I do not know that the 
grand jury has made any inquiry into this matter, or has 
ever attempted it. I have been a member of the grand 
jury since, and nothing was said about it ; " yet Rively was 
present when Brown received his death-blow, and heljied 
the drunken Dunn to put him into the wagon. The wife 
and child of Brown went to live with a neighbor until 
spring, and then went back to Michigan. The wife of 
Stephen Sparks, the Free-State man whom Brown rescued, 
testified that on the day Brown was murdered a party of 
j)roslavery horsemen, commanded by Dunn, rode up to her 
cabin on Stranger Creek, four miles south of Easton. They 
first gave chase to two Free-State men near by, shooting at 
them and shouting, "Kill the damned Abolitionists," and 
then returned to the Sparks cabin, where Dunn cried, 
" Now we will take the house : shoot Captain Sparks at 
sight ! " Whereupon, Mrs. Sparks says : — 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 227 

" I theu told them I had an afflicted son, and that anything that 
excited liim tlirew him into spasms right at once, and that his father 
and all but him were away from home. When I stepped back to the 
door and looked in, I saw Captain Dunn with a six-shooter presented 
at my son's breast. I did not hear the question asked, but I heard 
my son's answer, ' I am on the Lord's side ; and if you want to kill 
ine, kill me ! I am not afraid to die.' Dunn then left him, and 
turned to my little son, twelve years old, put the pistol to his breast, 
and asked him where his father's Sharpe's rifle was. My son told 
him he had none. Dunn then asked where those guns were, — 
pointing to the racks, — and told him if he did not tell the truth he 
would kill Iiim. My son told him ' the men-folks generally took care 
of tlie guns.' When they came out, I asked Ca])taiu Dunn, ' What 
does all this mean f ' He answered that ' they had taken the law into 
their own hands, and they intended to use it.' Late in February 
eight men came to the house ; two men came up first, and the others 
followed. They asked for Mr. Sparks, and left a paper with me, 
ending thus : ' Believing that your further residence among us is in- 
compatible with ilie peace and welfare of this community, we advise 
you to leave as soon as you can conveniently do so.' This was 
signed by forty men, (mly one of whom is an actual resident in the 
neighborhood ; most of them are Kickapoo Rangers and Missourians. 
One of the two who iirst came to the door said his name was 
Kennedy, from Alabama ; the other, 1 think, emigrated from Mis- 
souri. I asked him what he had against Mr. Sparks. He said 
he had nothing against him ; but he ' was too influential in his 
party, and they intended to break it down ; ' that I must tell Mr. 
Sparks to leave by March 10 or abide the consequences. A night 
or two before the 10th of March four men came into the house, 
about ten o'clock, and searched for Mr. Sparks, but did not find 
him. They asked for the 'notice to leave,' and if I had given it 
to Mr. Sparks, — and made many threats, and charged us to leave 
at that time, saying that if he was there they would cut him to 
pieces." ^ 

1 This tp.stimony was given by Mrs. " Esseneth " Sparks (who signed 
with a mark because she could not write), May 24, 1856, — the very day 
that Brown with his party was executing the Doyles and other ruffians on 
the Pottawatoraie. Stephen Sparks was a Missourian, who had lived in 
Platte County from 1845 to 1S54, then moved into Kansas, and was in 
1856 elected to the Free-State Legislature. He was a man of cool courage, 
who behaved well throughout the violent scenes of January 17-19, and 
told the Congressional Committee, " I belong to the Free-State party, but 
am no Abolitionist, either." On the night of the 17th, as he .said, " My 
8on was wounded (and knocked down within six or eight feet of me) in 



228 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

The Topeka Legislature (of which Sparks and the mur- 
dered Brown were members, as well as John Brown, Jr., 
and Major Abbott, the rescuer of Branson) met on the 4th 
of March, and remained in session four days, adjovirning to 
July 4. During this session they elected James H. Lane 
(who had commanded an Indiana regiment in the Mexican 
War and distinguished himself at Buena Vista) one of the 
United States senators from Kansas, not yet admitted as a 
State. On the 19th of March the House of Representatives 
at Washington voted a special committee (W. A. Howard 
of Michigan, John Sherman of Ohio, and M. N. Oliver of 
Missouri) to investigate the troubles of Kansas ; and on the 
24th of March General Cass presented in' the United States 
Senate the Topeka Free-State Constitution. Early in April, 
Jefferson Buford, of Eufaula, Ala., wlio had left his home 
in March, reached Kansas with a large force of Southern 
men, armed champions of slavery, and encamped not far 
from Osawatomicj while on the 16th of April the Free- 
State men round there — John Brown and his son John, 
O. V. Dayton, Eichard Mendenhall, Charles A. Foster of 
Massachusetts, and others — met in public assembly, and 
agreed not to pay taxes to the usurping Legislature, for 
which they were afterward indicted as conspirators. These 
occurrences should be borne in mind when reading John 
Brown's next letter. 

John Brown to his Family at North Elba. 

Biiown'.s Station, K. T., April 7, 1856. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — I wrote you last 
week, enclosing New York draft for thirty dollars, made payahle to 
Watson ; twenty dollars of which were to be given to Ruth, in part 
payment for the spotted cow, the balance to be used as circumstances 
might require. I would have sent you more, but I had no way to do 
it, and money is very scarce with me indeed Since I wrote last, 
three letters have been received by the boys from Ruth, dated March 
5 and 9, and one of same date from Watson. The general tone of 
those letters I like exceedingly. We do not want you to borrow 

the arm and head slightly ; but he raised a.train and fired." See Report 
of the Special Committee on the Troubles in Kansas, 1856, pp. 981-1020. 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 229 

trouble about us, but trust us to the care of " Him who feeds the young 
ravens when they cry." I have, as usual, but little to write. We 
are doing off a house for Orson Day, which we hope to get through 
with soon ; after which we shall probably soon leave this neighbor- 
hood, but will advise you further when we do leave. It may be that 
Watson can manage to get a little money for shearing sheep if you 
do not get any from Connecticut. I still hope you will get help from 
that source. We have no wars as yet, but we still have abundance 
of "rumors." We still have frosty nights, but the grass starts a 
little. There are none of us complaining much just now, all being 
able to do something. John has just returned from Topeka,^ not 
having met with any difficulty ; but we hear that preparations are 
making in the United States Court for numerous arrests of Free- 
State men. 2 For one, I have no desire (all things considered) to 
have the slave-power cease from its acts of aggression. "■ Their 
foot shall slide in due time." No more now. May God bless and 
keep you all !. 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

It was in the early part of May that John Brown exe- 
cuted a manoeuvre which has often been related, not always 
in the same manner, and which he may have repeated when 
necessary, — his visit to the camp of the proslavery men 
in the guise of a land-surveyor. Mr. Foster, now living 
in Quincy, Mass., but then a young lawyer at Osawatomie, 
newly married and beginning to practise in Miami County, 

1 The meeting of the Free-State Legislature. 

2 James Hamvay, of Pottawatomie, speaking of his old log-cabin, not 
far from Dutch Henry's Crossing, said, some years since : " It was in this 
cabin that the Pottawatomie Rifle Company, under Captain John Brown, 
Jr., stacked their arms when they paid a friendly visit to Judge Cato's 
court, in April, 1856. The Free-State settlers were anxious to learn what 
position Judge Cato would take, in his charge to the grand jury, concern- 
ing the celebrated ' bogus laws ' of the Shawnee Mission. This visit of 
our citizens was construed by the court as a demonstration unfavorable to 
the execution of the bogus laws. Before daylight the next moining Cato 
and his proslavery officials had left (they were on their way to Leconip- 
ton), and the grand jury was dismissed from further labor. This was the 
first and the last time that this section of the countiy was visited by 
proslavery officials." But we shall see, \vhen we come to consider the 
Pottawatomie executions, that this court did take action ; and perhay)S 
their action led to the killing of the five proslavery men near Dutch 
Henry's. 



230 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

is authority for one version of it. Mention has just been 
made of tlie arrival of Jefferson Buford from Alabama, 
with an armed company, which divided into colonies. Two 
of these directed their course towards the town of Osa- 
watomie, — one settling in a block-house on the Miami 
Eeserve, about a mile and a half from the town ; the other, 
and larger, colony made their hrst halt in the Osage bottom, 
near the town of Stanton, about eight miles from where the 
Shermans, Wilkinson, and the Doyles lived. At this time 
John Brown was not generally known, although he had been 
in the country six months. It was a matter of importance 
to the Free-State men to know what was the purpose of these 
bodies of armed men, so that they might shape their action 
accordingly. Brown, without consulting any one, deter- 
mined to visit their camp and ascertain their plans. He 
therefore took his tripod, chain, and other surveying imple- 
ments, and with one of his younger sons started for the 
camp. Just before reaching the place he struck his tripod, 
sighted a line through the centre of the camp, and then 
with his son began " chaining " the distance. The Southern 
men supposed him to be a Government surveyor (in those 
times, of course, proslavery), and were very free in telling 
him their plans. They were going over to Pottawatomie 
Creek to drive off all the Free-State men ; and there was a 
settlement of Browns on North Middle Creek, who had some 
of the finest stock, — these also they would "clean out," as 
well as the Dutch settlement between the two rivers.^ They 
were asked who had given them information about the 
Browns, etc., and who was directing them about the county ; 
and without any hesitation the Shermans, Doyles, Wilkin- 
son, George Wilson, and others were named. In the midst 
of the talk these men walked into the camp, as Mr. Foster 
says, and were received with manifestations of pleasure. A 
few days after, the camp was moved over to Pottawatomie 
Creek, and the men began stealing horses, arms, etc. This 

^ Tliis was the neighborhood where Beiijan)in, BontU, and Wiener liad 
settled, and where the valuahle warehouse of Wiener was afterward burned. 
The Doyles and Wilkinson were not far off, and the Shermans at Dutch 
Henry's Crossing were between the " Dutch settlement " and Buford's 
camp. 



i 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 231 

had been going on for some weeks when the attack, upon 
Lawrence was made in May.* 

The immediate occasion of the invasion of Lawrence a 
second (or rather a third) time was the resistance of the 
Lawrence Free-State men to an attempt made by Sheriff 
Jones, as deputy marshal of the United States, to arrest 
S. N. Wood, one of the rescuers of Branson the previous 
November. Jones made the first attempt April 19, tried 
again on the 20th, and on the 23d came with a tile of United 
States troops to support him. He arrested several citizens, 
but not Wood, and at night was himself shot at and wounded 
slightly. Advantage was taken of this act to inflame the 
minds of the Missourians ; and the LTnited States District 
Court, which was organized by, this time, with Judge Le- 
compte at its head, took up the matter as an affair of rebel- 
lion and treason. Early in May Lecompte gave a charge to 
the grand jury at the town named for him (Lecompton), 
in which he said : — 

" This Territory was orofanizod by an act of Congress, and so far 
its authority is from the United States, It lias a Legislature elected 
in pursuance of that oraranic act. This Legislature, being an instru- 
ment of Congress by which it governs the Territory, has passed laws. 
These laws, therefore, are of United States authority and making ; 
and all that resist these laios resist the power and authority of the 
United States, and are therefore guilty of high-treason. Now, gen- 
tlemen, if you find that any persons have resisted these laws, then you 
must, under your oaths, find bills against them for high-treason. If 
you find that no such resistance has been made, but that combinations 
have been formed for tlie purpose of resisting them, and individuals 
of influence and notoriety have been aiding and abetting in such 
combinations, then must you still find hills for constructive treason.'''' 

It was under this monstrous instruction, by which usur- 
pation was made legal and put on a level with the existence 
of the United States, that indictments were soon found 
against the Browns, Eobinson, and others for treason, con- 
spiracy, etc. Robinson, who was seeking to leave Kansas, 
was arrested May 10, and held a prisoner four months, when 

1 See Mr. Coleman's version of this surveying adventure in the next 
i chapter. 



232 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

he was released on bail. The grand jury then proceeded to 
indict other persons, and even the new hotel at Lawrence, 
— thus giving an air of burlesque to the tragedy they had 
begun. One of this jury, a Free-State man named Legate, 
who has since been conspicuous in Kansas now in one way 
and now in another, has told this amusing story of the secret 
proceedings at the Lecompton court-house : ^ — 

" I was honored, as I have been oftentimes, by holding distin- 
guished positions in the State of Kansas, — being a member of the 
grand jury ; and what a sweet-scented jury it was ! Uncle Jimmy 
McGee and myself were members from Lawrence. We had a caucus 
semi-occasionally. There were seventeen members, all told. Uncle 
Jimmy and I were temperate, but there were at least fifteen bottles 
of whiskey in the room all the time. The first and most important 
case to be tried was the indictinent of Sam Wood and John Speer. 
I have forgotten whether it was John Speer for assuming to hold an 
office that he was not legally elected to, and Sam Wood for re- 
sisting an officer, or vice versa. Attorney-General Isaacs was sent 
for. Like a great many Yankees I was inquisitive, and there was a 
very important point to be decided, in my mind; so I said to him, 
' You have John Speer charged with treason. Under what law or 
circumstance do you make his offence treason ? ' ' Well, sir,' said 
he, taking hold of the flask of whiskey, ' the facts are these : a man 
who pretends to hold an office, having once held that office, and is 
defunct, and assumes to still hold it against the constituted authori- 
ties, commits treason.' Said I, ' What about Sam Wood ? ' He 
replied, ' If a man undertakes to carry out the decrees of such an 
officer, he commits treason also.' I thought that was good enough. 
There were thirteen votes, — Stuart not voting. Uncle Jimmy 
McGee and I voted no.* 

^ See " The Kansas Memorial," 1879, pp. 62, 63. This volume contains 
much material for history, undigested and ill-arranged, along with some 
worthless stuff. 

2 " Uncle Jimmy McGee " was a Kansas settler of Scotch-Irish descent, 
a Methodi.st of some property, who wlien tlie defenders of Lawrence were 
.throwing up rifle-works said to them, " Work away, boys ! there 's two 
thousand bushels of corn in Jimmy McGee's erib, and while it lasts ye 
sha'n't starve." James F. Legate himself is a Massachusetts man (born in 
Leominster in 1829), who saw a great deal of the machinery that in 1855-56 
was used to produce political effect in Ivansas and in the East. He said in 
tliis speech of 1879 : " 1 remember, twenty-five years ago, when the Free- 
State men of Kansas (that meant Lawrence, Topeka, and a few fellows over 



1856] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 233 

'' The next thing was this ' cussed ' Emigrant Aid Society. 
They had built a hotel here in Lawrence with about a foot and a 
half of wall above the roof, and fitted it up with port-holes, and they 
called that the Fort. It was designed to protect the town against 
the officers of the law fi-om executing the decrees of court, they said. 
About that time I remembered that I had a pressing engagement out 
at old Judge Wakefield's. So I went out afoot (that is the way we 
used to ride a good deal in those days), and got a pony and saddle 
there, rode up to Tecumseh, where 1 had a talk with John Sherman, 
Governor Robinson, and Mr. Howard ; and I gave them a pretty 
clear idea of what was going on, — that is, I intimated it to them. I 
then went back to Judge Wakefield's, slept about an hour, walked 
over to Lecompton, and was arrested for C(mtempt of court. I went 
into the court-room, and the court wanted to know what excuse I 
had. I gave a truthful answer, as I always do. I said I went over 
to Judge Wakefield's, went to sleep, and had overslept myself. I 
was excused ; and I went back to Judge Wakefield's, got the pony, 
and came over to Lawrence. T do not think Governor Robinson was 
there at the time. I believe he had pressing duties which called him 
East, and he went as far as Lexington, where he found a stopping- 
place. He came back by way of Leavenworth to Lecompton. They 
made some arrests in Lawrence, and then they went about abating 
the nuisance of the Fort hotel. They had a cannon on the opposite 
side of the street ; and old Atchison got down on his knees, took de- 
liberate aim at the hotel, and shot clear over it, and struck the hill 
near where a crowd of women were, who had left the town for safety. 
Their gunners were so good (?) that they could not hit the whole side 
of a hotel across the street. However, they finally demolished it." 

In this humorous chronicle Mr. Legate has comprised all 
the time from the '8th to the 20th of May, closing with the 
attack on Lawrence by the United States marshal and his 
posse, — Sheriff Jones, too, with his posse, — including the 

in Leavenworth) would hold a convention as often as the Yankees eat in 
hay-time, — and that is, three regular meak a day and a hmcheon between. 
And a solemn convention it would be, with ' Dr. Charles Robinson, presi- 
dent,' ' George ^V. Brown, secretary ' (now and then Joel K. Goodin or John 
Speer for .secretary), and about a dozen awfully ragged, deplorably forlorn- 
looking cusses (who wanted to get back East again, and had n't the money 
to take them there) to make up the audience. And W. A. Phillips, Jim 
Redpath, and Hinton would report it, and it would make two and a half 
and sometimes three columns in the ' New York Tribune.' " It was after 
coming out of some such convention that John Brown said, " Great cry and 
little wool, — all talk and no cider." 



234 LITE AKD LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Border Ruffians, and Atchison, lately Vice-President of the 
United States, at their head. The marshal, Donaldson, 
acted under Judge Lecompte, and collected his men by this 
proclamation, dated May 11 : — 

" Whereas certain judicial writs have been directed to me, by the 
First District Court of the United States, etc., to be executed within 
the county of Dciuglas ; and whereas an attempt to execute them by 
the United States deputy marshal was violently resisted by a large 
number of the citizens of Lawrence ; and as there is every reason to 
believe that an attempt to execute these writs will be resisted by a 
large body of armed men, — now, therefore, the law-abiding citizens 
of the Territory are connnanded to be and appear at Lecomptou, as 
soon as practicable, and in numbers sufficient for the proper execu- 
tion of the law." 

Atchison, on the morning of May 20, made a foul speech 
near Lawrence to five hundred Border Ruffians,^ among whom 
were the Kickapoo Rangers, who had murdered Brown at 
Easton. He said : — 

" Boys, this day I am a Kickapoo Ranger, by God I This day 
we have entered Lawrence with ' Southern Riglits ' inscribed upon 
our banner, and not one damned Abolitionist dared to fire a gun. 
Now, boys, this is the happiest day of my life. We have en- 
tered that damned town, and taught the damned Abolitionists a 
Southern lesson that they will remember until the day they die. 
And now, boys, we will go in again, with our highly honorable 
Jones, and test the strength of that damned Free- State Hotel, and 
teach the Emigrant Aid Company that Kansas shall be ours. Boys, 
ladies should, and I hope will, be respected by every gentleman. 

1 I quote this speech, with all its profanity and drunken gravity, because 
in no other way than by reading their utterauces can tlie men of to-day un- 
derstand how vile and coarse were the men who were carrying out in Kansas 
the behests of the Southern slaveholders and their willing tools at Wash- 
ington. The term "Border Ruffians " is also used for the same purpose, 
since none could be so descri]>tive of these men who followed Atchison and 
his comrades. Among their leaders were men of cultivation, wealth, and 
humanity; and such persons did much to mitigate the horrors of the brutal 
mob-despotism which then prevailed, by intervals, where the flag of the 
nation should have secured peace and justice to all who lived under it. 
But from the rabble who filled the ranks came in due time such outlaws as 
Quantrell, who in 186.3 sacked Lawrence and murdered one hundred and 
fifty of its people ; and the James brothers, who were in his band. 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 235 

But when a woman takes upon herself the garb of a soldier by 
carrying a yharpe's ritle, then she is no louiyer worthy of respect. 
Trample her under your feet as you would a snake! Come on, 
boys ! Now do your duty to yourselves aud your St)uthern friends! 
Your duty I know you will do. If one man or woman dare stand 
before you, blow them to hell with a chunk of cold lead." 

t 
As soon as Atchison concluded, the men moved towards 
the town until near the hotel, when the advance company 
halted. Jones said the hotel must be destroyed ; he was 
acting under orders; he had writs issued by the First 
District Court of the United States to destroy the Free- 
State Hotel, and the offices of the '' Herald of Freedom " and 
"■ Free State." The grand jury at Lecompton had indicted 
them as nuisances, and the court had ordered them to be 
destroyed. Here is the indictment : — 



" The Grand Jury sitting for the adjourned term of the First 
District Court, in and for the County of Douglas, in the Territory of 
Kansas, beg leave to report to the H(moral)le Court, from evidence 
laid before them showing it, that the newspaper known as ' The 
Herald of Freedom,' published at the town of Lawrence, has from 
time to time issued publications of the most inflammatory and 
seditious character, denying the legality of the Territorial au- 
thorities ; addressing and commanding forcible resistance to the 
same; demoralizing the popular mind, and rendering life and prop- 
erty unsafe, even to the extent of advising assassination as a last 
resort. 

" Also, that the paper known as ' The Kansas Free State' has 
been similarly engaged, and has recently reported the resolutions 
of a public meeting in Johnson County, in this Territory, in wliicli 
resistance to the Territorial laws even unto blood has been agreed 
upon. And that we respectfully recommend their abatement as a 
nuisance. Also, that we are satisfied that the building known as 
the 'Free-State Hotel' in Lawrence has been constructed VA-ith the 
view to military occupation and defence, regularly parapeted and 
portholed for the use of cannon and small arms, and could only have 
been designed as a stronghold of resistance to hiw, thereby endanger- 
ing the public safety and encouraging rebellion and sedition in tliis 
country, and respectfully recommend that steps be taken whereby 
this nuisance may be removed. 

" Owen C Stewart, Foreman." 



236 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Incredible as it may now appear, this indictment was 
carried out : the hotel was destroyed, the offending news- 
paper had its type and press thrown into the Kansas River ; 
and all this was done under the cover of United States 
authority. The President (Pierce), his Cabinet, in which 
Jeiferson Davis was a controlling member, the Senate of 
the United States, and the national courts appeared as the 
accomplices of murder, arson, and pillage, and as the cham- 
pions of pettier tyrants who would hesitate at no crime. 
It was under these circumstances that John Brown now 
took the field ; and he shall be his own reporter. 



brown's second campaign in KANSAS. 

Near Brown's Station, K. T., June, 1856. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, ^ — It is now about five 
weeks since I have seen a line from North Elba, or had any chance 
of writing yon. During that period we here have passed through 
an almost constant series of very trying events. We were called to 
go to tlie relief of Lawrence, May 22, and every man (eight in all), 
except Orson, turned out; he staying with the women and children, 
and to take care of tlie cattle.^ John was captain of a company to 
which Jason belonged ; the other six were a little company by our- 
selves. On our way to Lawrence we learned that it had been already 
destroyed, and we encamped with John's company overnight. Nex,t 
day our little company left, and during the day we stopped and 
searched three men. • 

Lawrence was destroyed in this way : Their leading men had (as 
I think) decided, in a very cowardhj manner, not to resist any pro- 
cess having any Government official to serve it, notwithstanding the 
process might be wholly a bogus affair. The consequence was that 
a man called a United States marshal came on witli a horde of 
ruffians which he called his posse, and after arrestintr a few persons 
turned tlie ruffians loose on the defenceless people. They robbed the 
inhabitants of their money and other property, and even women of 
their ornaments, and burned considerable of the town. 

On the second day and evening after we left John's men we 
encountered quite a number of proslavery men, and took quite a 

1 "Orson" was Mr. Orson Day, a brother of Mrs. Jolm Brown. The 
" other six " were probably John Brown, Owen, Frederick, Salmon, Oliver, 
and Henry Thompson. 



1856.1 THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 237 

number prisoners. Our prisoners we let go ; but we kept some four 
or five horses.' We were immediately after this accused of murdering 
five men at Pottawatomie, and great efl'orts liave since been made by 
the Missourians and their rufiian allies to capture us. John's com- 
pany soon afterward disbanded, and also the Osawatomie men.^ 

Jason started to go and place himself under the protection of the 
G(»vernment troops ; but on his way he was taken prisoner by the 
Bogus men, and is yet a prisoner, I suppose. John tried to hide for 
several days ; but from feeling^ of the ungrateful conduct of those 
who ought to have stood by him, excessive fatigue, anxiety, and con- 
stant loss of sleep, he became quite insaue, and in that situation 
gave up, or, as we are told, was betrayed at Osawatomie into the 
hands of the Bogus men. We do not know all the truth about this 
afiair. He has since, we are told, been kept in irons, and brought to 
a trial before a bogus court, the result of which we have not yet 
learned. We have great anxiety both for him and Jason, and 
numerous other prisoners with the enemy (who have all the while 
had the Government troops to sustain them). We can only commend 
them to God. 8 

1 This is all that Bro\vn says in this letter about the events of that night 
in May when the Doyles were executed. Doubtless his text for the next 
morning was from the Book of Judges : " Then Gideon took ten men of his 
servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him ; and so it was that he 
did it by night. And when the men of the city arose early in the morn- 
ing, behold the altar of Baal was cast down. And they said, one to another, 
Who hath done this thing ? And when they inquired and asked, they said, 
Gideon, the son of Joash, hath done this thing." 

2 In the original something has been erased after this, to which this note 
seems to have been appended : "There are but very few who wish real 
facts about these matters to go out." Then is inserted the date "June 
26," as below. 

3 John Brown, Jr.'s, own account of this campaign, as given by him 
to a reporter of the "Cleveland Leader," April, 1879, is as follows: 
"During the winter of 1856 I raised a company of riflemen from the 
Free-State settlers who had their homes in tlie vicinity of Osawatomie and 
Pottawatomie Creek, and marched with this company to the defence of 
Lawrence, May, 1856, but did not reach the latter place in time to save it 
from being burned by the Missourians at that time. On this march I was 
joined by three other companies, and was chosen to the command of the 
combined forces. Returning to our homes, we found them burned to the 
ground by Buford's men from Alabama, who had marched in from Missouri 
on our rear. Our cattle and horses were driven off and dispersed, there 
only being three or "four which we ultimately recovered. In that destruc- 
tion of our houses I lost my library, 'consisting of about four hundred 
volumes, which I had been accumulating since I was sixteen. Reaching 



238 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856 

The cowardly mean conduct of Osawatomie and vicinity did not 
save them ; for the ruffians came on them, made numerous prisoners, 
fired their buildings, and robbed them. After this a picked party of 
the Bogus men went to Brown's Station,^ burned John's and Jason's 
houses, and their contents to ashes ; in which burning we have all 
suffered more or less. Orson and boy have been prisoners, but were 
soon set at liberty. They are well, and have not been seriously in- 
jured. Owen and I have just come here for the first time to look at 
the ruius. All looks desolate and ^'rsaken, — the grass and weeds 
fast covering up the signs that these places were lately the abodes of 
quiet families. After burning the houses, this self-same party of 
picked men, some forty in number, set out as they supposed, and as 
was the fact, on the track of my little company, boasting, with awful 
profanity, that they would have our scalps. They however passed 
the place where we were hid, and robbed a little town some four or 
five miles beyond our camp in the timber.^ I had omitted to say 
that some murders had been committed at the tim.e Lawrence was 
sacked. 

On learning that this party were in pursuit of us, my little company, 
now increased to ten in all, started after them in company of a Cap- 
tain Shore, with eighteen men, he included (June 1). We were all 
mounted as we travelled. We did not meet them on that day, but 
took five prisoners, four of whom were of their scouts, and well 
armed. We were out all night, but could find nothing of them until 

Osawatomie, my brother Jason and I were arrested on the charge of treason 
against the United States, by United States troops, acting as posse for the 
marshal of the Territory, and taken to Paola, where Judge Cato was to hold 
a preliminary examination ; but he did not hold his court. It was from the 
latter place that I was tied by Captain AVood of the United States cavalry, 
and driven on foot at the head of the column a distance of nine miles at 
full trot to Osawatomie. My arms were tied behind me, and so tightly as 
to check the circulation of the blood, especially in the right arm, causing 
the rope, which remained on me twenty-seven hours, to siidc into the flesli, 
leaving a mark upon that arm which I have to this day. The captain of that 
comjiany was, I think, a Georgian, and finally, I believe, entered the Ton- 
federate service during the late war. From there we were marched, chained 
two by two, carrj'ing the chain between us, to a camp near Lecompton, 
where we met the other treason prisoners and were turned over to the cus- 
tody of Colonel Sacket, who had command of a regiment of United States 
cavalry. We were held here until September of 1856, when we were re- 
leased on bail ; and a few days after I took part in the defence of Lawrence 
against the third attack. At that time Franklin was burned, a few miles 
from Lawrence." 

1 Ten miles west of Osawatomie. 

2 This town was Palmyra. 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 239 

about six o'clock next morning, wlien we prepared to attack them at 
once, on foot, leaving Frederick and one of Captain Shore's men to 
guard the horses. As I was much older than Captain Shore, the prin- 
cipal direction of the fight devolved on me. We got to within about 
a mile of their camp before being discovered by tlieir scouts, and then 
moved at a brisk pace, Captain Shore and men forming our left, and 
my coinjjany the right. When within about sixty rods of the enemy. 
Captain Sliore's men halted by mistake in a very exposed situation, 
and continued the fire, both his men and the^ enemy being armed 
with Sharpe's rifles. My company had no long-shooters. We (my 
company) did not fire a gun until we gained the rear of a bank, 
about fifteen or twenty rods to the right of the enemy, where we 
commenced, and soon compelled them to hide in a ravine. Captain 
Shore, after getting one man wounded, and exhausting his ammuni- 
tion, came with part of his men to the right of my position, much 
discouraged. The balance of liis men, includiug the one wounded, 
had left the ground. Five of Captain Shore's men came boldly do\^Ti 
and joined my company, and all but one man, wounded, helped to 
maintain the fight until it was over. I was obliged to give my con- 
sent that he ^ should go after more help, when all his men left but 
eight, four of whom I persuaded to remain in a secure position, and 
there buried cme of them in shooting the horses and mules of the 
enemy, which served for a show of fight. After the firing had con- 
tinned for some two to three hours. Captain Pate with twenty-three 
men, two badly wounded, laid down their arms to nine men, myself 
incduded, — four of Captain Shore's men and four of my own. One 
of my men (Henry Thompson) ^ was badly wounded, and after con- 
tinuing his fire for an hour longer was obliged to quit the ground. 
Three others of my company (but not of my family) had gone off. 
Salmon was dreadfully wounded by accident, soon after the fight; but 
both he and Henry are fast recovering. 

A day or two after the fight, Colonel Sumner of the United States 
army came suddenly upon us, while fortifying our camp and guard- 
ing our prisoners (which, by the way, it had ]>een agreed mutually 
should be exchanged for as many Free-State men, John and Jason 
included), and compelled us to let go our prisoners without being 
exchanged, and to give up their horses and arms. They did not go 
more than two or three miles before tliey began to rob and injure 
Free-State people. We consider this as in good keeping with the 

^ By "he" is apparently meant Captain Shore. 

2 Brown's son-in-law, the husband of Ruth Brown. The agreement 
with Pate, referred to above, is still in existence to confirm tliis letter ; 
both copies of it having found their way to the Historical Library at 



240 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

cruel and unjust course of the Administration and its tools through- 
out this whole Kansas difficulty. Colonel Sumner also compelled us 
to disband ; and we, being only a handful, were obliged to submit. 

Since then we have, like David of old, luid our dwelling with the 
serpents of the rocks and wild beasts of the wilderness ; being obliged 
to hide away from our enemies. We are not disheartened, though 
nearly destitute of food, clothing, and money. God, who has not 
given us over to the will of our enemies, but has moreover deliv- 
ered them into our hand, will, we humbly trust, still keep and deliver 
us. We feel assured that He who sees not as men see, does not lay 
the guilt of innocent blood to our charge. 

I ought to have said that Captain Shore and his men stootl their 
ground nobly in tlieir unfortunate but mistaken position during the 
early part of the figlit. I ought to say further that a Captain Ab- 
bott, being some miles distant with a company, came onward promptly 
to sustain us, but could not reach us till the fight was over. After 
the fight, numerous Free- State men who could not be got out before 
were on hand ; and some of them, I am ashamed to add, were very 
busy not only with the plunder of our enemies, but with our private 
effects, leaving us, while guarding our prisoners and providing in 
regard to them, much poorer than before the battle. 

If, under God, this letter reaches you so that it can be read, T wish 
it at once carefully copied, and a copy of it sent to Gcrrit Smith. I 
know of no other way to get those tacts and our situation before the 
world, nor when I can write again. 

Topeka, where Mi'. F. G. Adams, the secretary, showed them to me in 
1882. Here is a copy : — 

This is an article nf agreement hetween Captains John Brown, Sr. , and Samuel T. 
Shore of the first part, and Captain H. C. Pate and Lieutenant W. B. Brockett of the 
second part : and witnesses that, in eonsideratioti of the fact that the parties of the first 
part have a number of Captain Pate's company prisoners, that they agree to give up 
and fully liberate one of their prisoners for one of those lately arrested near Stanton, 
Osawatomie, and Pottawatomie, and so on, one of the former for one of the latter alter- 
nately, until all are liberated. It is understood and agreed by the parties that the suns 
of Captain John Brown, Sr. — Captain John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown — are to be 
anions the liberated parties (if not already h'berated), and aie to he exchanged for 
Cajitain Pate and Lieutenant Brockett, respectively. The jjrisonei-s are to be brought on 
neutral ground ancl exchanged. It is agreed that the neutral ground shall be at or near 
the house of John T. (or Ottawat .Tones of this Territory, and that those who have been 
arrested and have been liberated will be considered in the same light as those not liber- 
ated : but they nnist a))pear in jierson, or answer in writing that they are at liberty. 
The arms, particnlarly the side arms of each one exchanged, are to be returned with 
the prisoners ; also the horses, so far as practicable. 

(Signed) John Browk. 



Pkairik City, K. T., June 2, 1856. 



S. T. Shore. 
H. C. Pate. 
W. B. Brockett. 



1856.1 THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 241 

Owen has the ague to-day. Our camp is some miles off. Have 
heard that letters are in for some of us, but have not seen them. Do 
continue writing. We heard last mail brought only three letters, 
and all these for proslavery men. It is said that both the Lawrence 
and Osawatomie men, when the ruffians came on them, either hid or 
gave up their arms, and that their leading men counselled them to 
take such a course. 

May God bless and keep you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

P. S. Ellen and Wealthy are staying at Osawatomie. 

The above is a true account of the first regular battle fought be- 
tween Free-State and proslavery men in Kansas. May God still 
gird our loins and hold our right hands, and to him may we give the 
glory ! I ought in justice to say, that, after tlie sacking and burning 
of several towns, the Government troops appeared for their protection 
and drove off some of the enemy. J. B. 

June 26. Jason is set at liberty, and we have hopes for John.. 
Owen, Salmon, and Oliver are down with fever (since inserted) ; 
Henry doing well. 

With this chapter of Brown's commentaries on the Kan- 
sas war may properly go the following papers, although 
they were not written until some months later, — the first 
in August, 1856, and the second after Brown left Kansas 
in October, 1856. The first is addressed to his friend Ed- 
mund B, Whitman, who then lived at Lawrence. 

For Mr. Whitman. 

Names of sufferers and persons who have made sacrifices in en- 
deavoring to maintain and advance the Free-State cause in Kansas, 
within my personal knowledge. 

1. Two German refugees (thoroughly Free- State), robbed at Pot- 
tawatomie, named Benjamin and Bondy (or Bundy). One has served 
under me as a volunteer ; namely, Bondy. Benjamin was prisoner 
for some time. Suffered by men under Coffee and Pate. 

2. Henry Thompson. Devoted several months to the Free-State 
cause, travelling nearly two thousand miles at his own expense for 
the purpose, leaving family and business for about one year. Served 
under me as a volunteer ; was dangerously wounded at Palmyra, or 
Black Jack ; has a bullet lodged beside his backbone ; has had a 

16 



242 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

severe turn of fever, and is still very feeble. SuflFered a little in burn- 
ing of the houses of John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown. 

3. John, Jr., and Jason Brown. Both burned out ; botli prisoners 
for some time, one a prisoner still ; both losing the use of valuable, 
partially improved claims. Both served repeatedly as volunteers for 
defence of Lawrence and other places, suffering great hardships and 
some cruelty. 

4. Owen and Frederick Brown. Both served at different periods 
as volunteers under me; were both in the battle of Palmyra; botli 
suffered by the burning of their brothers' houses ; both have had 
sickness (Owen a severe one), and are yet feeble. Both lost the use 
of partially improved claims and their spring and summer work. 

5. Salmon Brown (minor). Twice served under me as a volun- 
teer ; was dangerously wounded (if not permanently crippled) by 
accident near Palmyra ; had a severe sickness, and still feeble. 

6. Oliver Brown (minor). Served under me as a volunteer for 
some uKmths; was in the battle of Palmyra, and had some sickness. 

7. [B. L.J Cochran (at Pottawatomie). Twice served under me 
as a volunteer ; was in the battle of Palmyra.^ 

8. Dr. Lucius Mills devoted some months to the Free-State cause, 
collecting and giving information, prescribing for and nursing the 
sick and wounded at his own cost. Is a worthy Free-State man. 

9. John Brown has devoted the service of himself and two minor 
sons to tile Free-State cause for more than a year; suffered by the 
fire before named and by robbery ; has gone at his own cost for that 
period, except that he and his company together have received forty 
dollars in cash, two sacks of flour, thirty-five pounds bacon, thirty- 
five do. sugar, and twenty pounds rice. 

I propose to serve hereafter in the Free-State cause (provided my 
needful expenses can be met), should that be desired ; and to raise a 
small regular force to serve on the same condition. My own means 
are so far exhausted that 1 can no longer continue in the service 
at present without the means of defraying my expenses are fur- 
nished me. 

I can give the names of some five or six more volunteers of special 
merit 1 would be glad to have particularly noticed in some way. 

J. Brovv^n. 

The second paper is part of the notes which Brown drew 
up for his speeches at Hartford, Boston, Concord, and other 
New England towns, in the spring of 1857. In this speech 
he laid stress not only on the sins of the Border Ruffians 

1 Better known as Black Jack. 



I 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 243 

and tlie unpatriotic conduct of the National Government, but 
on the pecuniary loss which he and the other settlers had 
undergone in being kept from their work, at the busiest 
season of the year, by the raids from Missouri. This gives 
a strange air to the paper, which is otherwise noticeable for 
the facts set forth. 

AN IDEA OF THINGS IN KANSAS. ' 

I propose, in order to make this meeting as useful and interest- 
ing as I can, to try and give a correct idea of the condition of things 
in Kansas, as they were while I was there, and as I suppose they 
still are, so far as the great question at issue is concerned. And here 
let me remark that in Kansas the question is never raised of a man, 
Is he a Democrat '? Is he a Republican ? The questions there 
raised are, Is he a Free-State man ? or. Is he a proslavery man? 

I saw, while in Missouri in the fall of ]8.'55, large numbers on 
their way to Kansas to vote, and also returuing after they had so 
done, as they said. I, together with four of my sous, was called out 
to help defend Lawrence in the fall of 18.5.5, and travelled most of the 
way on foot, and during a dark night, a distance of thirty-five miles, 
where we were detained with some five hundred others, or there- 
about, from five to fifteen days, — say an average of ten days, — at 
a cost to each per day of $l.,5l1 as wages, to say nothing of the actual 
loss and suffering it occasioned ; many of them leaving their families 
at home sick, their crops not secured, their houses unprepared for 
winter, and many of them without houses at all. This was the case 
with myself and all my sons, who were unable to get auy house 
built after our return. The loss in that case, as wages alone, would 
amount to $7,500. Loss and suffering in consequence cannot be 
estimated. I saw at that time the body of the murdered Barber, 
and was present when his wife and other friends were brought iu 
to see him as he lay in the clothes he had on when killed, — no very 
pleasant sight ! 

I went, in the spring of last year, with some of my sons among 
the Buford men, in the character of a surveyor, to see and hear from 
them their business into the Territory; this took us from our work. 
I and numerous others, in the spring of last year, travelled some ten 
miles or over on foot, to meet and advise as to what should be done 
to meet the gathering storm ; this occasioned much loss of time. I 
also, with many others, about the same time travelled on foot a sim- 
ilar distance to attend a meeting of Judge Cato's court, to find out 
what kind of laws he intended to enforce ; this occasioned further 



244 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

loss of time. I with six sons and a son-in-law was again called out 
to defend Lawrence, May 20 and 21, and travelled most of the way 
on foot and during the night, being thirty-five miles. From that 
date none of us could do any work about our homes, but lost our 
whole time until we left, in October last, excepting one of my sons, 
who had a few weeks to devote to the care of liis own and his broth- 
er's family, who had been burned oiit of their houses while the two 
men were prisoners. 

From about the 20th of May of last year hundreds of men like 
ourselves lost their whole time, and entirely failed of securing any 
kind of crop whatever. 1 believe it safe to say that five hundred 
Free-State men lost each one hundred and twenty days, at $1.50 per 
day, which would be, to say nothing of attendant losses, $90,000. 
I saw the ruins of many Free-State men's houses "at different places 
in the Territory, together with stacks of grain wasted and burning, 
to the amount of, say $50,000 ; making, in lost time and destruction 
of property, more than $150,000. On or about the 30tli of May last 
two of my sons, with several others, were imprisoned witliout other 
crime than opposition to bogus enactments, and most barbarously 
treated for a time, — one being held about one month, the other 
about four months. Both had their families in Kansas, and destitute 
of homes, being burned out after they were imprisoned. In this 
buniing all the eight were sufterers, as we all had our effects at the 
two houses. One of my sons had his oxen taken from him at this 
time, and never recovered tliem. Here is the chain with wliich one 
of them was confined, after the cruelty, sufferings, and anxiety he 
underwent had rendered him a maniac, — yes, a maniac. 

On the 2d of June last my son-in-law was tembly wounded (sup- 
posed to be mortally), and two other Free-State men, at Black Jack. 
On the 6th or 7th of June last one of my sons was wounded by acci- 
dent in camp (supposed to be mortally), and may prove a cripple for 
life. In August last I was present an<l saw the mangled and shock- 
ingly disfigured body of the murdered Hoyt, of Deerfield, Mass., 
brought into our camp. I knew liim well. I saw several other 
Free-State men who were either killed or wt>unded, whose names I 
cannot now remember. I saw Dr. Graham, who was a prisoner \vith 
the ruffians on the 2d of June last, and was present when they 
wounded him, in an attempt to kill him, as he was trying to save 
himself from being murdered by them during the fight of Black Jacl\. 
I know that for much of the time during the last summer the travel 
over a portion of the Territory was entirely cut off, and that none but 
bodies of armed men dared to move at all. I know that for a con- 
siderable time the mails on different routes were entirely stopped, and 
that notwithstanding there were abundant United States troops at 



1856.] THE BROWN FAMILY IN KANSAS. 245 

hand to escort the mails, such escorts were not furnished as they 
might or ought to have been. I saw while it was standing, and 
afterward saw the ruins of, a most valuable house, full of good arti- 
cles and stores, which had been burned by the ruflBaus for a highly 
civilized, intelligent, and most exemplary Christian Indian, for be- 
ing suspected of favoring Free-State men. He is known as Ottawa 
Jones, or John T. Jones. In September last I visited a beautiful 
little Free-State town called Stanton, on the north side of the Osage 
or Marais des Cygnes River, as it is called, from which every inhab- 
itant had fled (being in fear of their lives), after having built them, 
at a heavy expense, a strong block-house or wooden fort for their 
protection. Many of them had left their effects liable to be destroyed 
or carried off, not being able to remove them. This was a most 
gloomy scene, and like a visit to a vast sepulchre. 

During last summer and faU deserted houses and cornfields were to 
be met with in almost every direction south of the Kansas Eiver. 
I saw the burning of Osawatomie by a body of some four hundred 
ruffians, and of Franklin afterward by some twenty-seven hundred 
men, — the first-named on August 30, the last-named September 
14 or 15. Governor Geary had been for some time in the Territory, 
and might have saved Franklin with perfect ease. It would not have 
cost the United States one dollar to have saved Franklin. 

I, with five sick and wounded sous and son-in-law, was obliged for 
some time to lie on the ground, without shelter, our boots and clothes 
worn out, destitute of money, and at times ahnost in a state of stan-a- 
tion, and dependent on the charities of the Christian Indian and his 
wife whom I before named. ^ I saw, in September last, a Mr. Parker, 

^ Notwithstanding the losses and charities of this good Indian in 1856, 
he was the next year in condition to make further gifts to Brown, as 
appears by this letter : — 

Ottawa Creek, K. T., Oct. 13, 1857. 
Mr. John Bro\vn. 

Dear Sir, — Respecting the account you have against us as a band, I would respect- 
fully inform you that I have presented the matter before them two or three different 
times, and ] cannot jiei-suade them but what was paid by them was all that could be 
reasonably demanded of them, from the bargain they entered into with Jones the agent. 
Foi my part I think the charge is just, and it ought to be paid. The Ottawa payment 
comes oS some time this week, and I will i)resent your case before them again, and do 
what I can to induce them to attend to the account, though I entertain no hopes of its 
being allowed ; but nothing like tiying. In contributing my mite in aiding you in your 
benevolent enterjirise, I enclose you ten dollars on the State Bank of Indiana (I presume 
it is good, though hundreds ^f other banks are worthless), and throw in the young 
man's bill and horse-hire, which amounts to four dollai-s. Accept it, sir, as a free-will 
offering from your friend. 

Tiines are coming round favorably in Kansas. Mr. Parrott for Congress will have 
8,000 to 10,000 majority over Ransom, and both branches of the Legislature the same in 
proportion. I am quite encouniged that ali things will work together for good for those 
who are trying to work out righteousness in the land. May God bless you in your work 



246 " LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

whom I well know, with his head all bruised over aud his throat 
partly cut, having before been dragged, while sick, out of the house of 
Ottawa Jones, the Indian, when it was burned, aud thrown for dead 
over the bank of the Ottawa Creek. 

I saw three mangled bodies of three young men, two of which 
were dead and had lain on the open ground for about eighteen hours 
for the flies'' to work at, the other living vi-ith twenty buckshot and 
bullet-holes in him. One of those two dead was my own son. 

Here, then, we may pause to review the position of the 
Brown family in Kansas, twelve months after John Brown 
had set forth from Illinois to support his children in making 
free and peaceful homes on those beautiful prairies. One 
of his sons was dead ; another a prisoner charged with trea- 
son; a third was desperately woundqd; a fourth stricken 
down with illness ; all had lost their cabins, their crops, 
their books and papers ; their waves and children w^ere scat- 
tered or far away. Only one son of the six remained in 
fighting condition ; all were in extreme poverty ; the cause 
of freedom, for which they had ventured so much, seemed 
almost lost. Everything w^as subdued except the inexorable 
will of John Brown. ^ That remained ; his faith in God and 
his obedience to the voice of God were as quick as ever ; and 
he had begun the warfare against slavery by a dire blow, 
which w^as destined in its consequences to make Kansas free, 
even as his master-stroke in Virginia, three years later, w^as 
to set in motion the avalanche that destroyed slavery in the 
whole land. This blow was the execution at Pottawatomie 
on the 24th of ]\Iay. 

of benevolence and philanthropy : and may God reward ynu more than double for your 
toil and losses in the vvorl': to bring about liberty for all men ! Write me if you can, and 
let ine know how you are gettin^r along, etc. 

I remain your sincere friend, John T. Jones. 

By " us as a band " is meant the Ottawa tribe of Indians, and their 
" payment" was the allowance periodically given to them by the Federal 
Government. I saw one of the last nomadic Indians of this tribe sitting 
bareheaded on his pony in the busy streets of Ottawa, in August, 1882, 
staring with his stolid eye at the white man's way of life. 
* Andire magnos jam videor duces 
Non indecoro pulvere sordidos, 
El cnncfM terrarum subacfa 
Prcetcr atrocem animum Catonix. 

Horace, Odes, lib. ii. car. i. 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 247 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 

'"PHE story of John Brown will mean little to those who 
-■- do not believe that God governs the world, and that 
He makes His will known in advance to certain chosen men 
and women who perform it, consciously or unconsciously. 
Of such prophetic, Heaven-appointed men John Brown was 
the most conspicuous in our time, and his life must be con- 
strued in the light of that fact, — as the career of Cromwell 
must be, and has been, since Carlyle set it forth to the world 
in its true colors. Cotton Mather, in 1720, intimated to the 
young friend for whom he wrote his quaint " Directions for 
a Candidate of the Ministry," that he must not look at 
Cromwell through Clarendon's glasses. " I do particularly 
advertise you," said Mather, " that this mighty man has 
never yet had his history fully and fairly given ; and when 
you read it given with the greatest impartiality wherein 
you have hitherto seen it, you may bear this in your mind, 
that the priiiciiml stroke in his character, and the p7'inci- 
pal spring of his conduct, is forever defectively related." 
Brown has not suffered so much as Cromwell in this way, 
for his worldly success was not so great, and therefore he 
offered a lesser mark for envy and malice ; he was also a 
more simple and ingenuous Calvinist than Cromwell, and 
could not lay himself so open to the charge of hypocrisy 
and self-seeking. But the source of his greatness and the 
motive of his public conduct were essentially the same, — 
an impression that God had called him to a high and pain- 
ful work, and that he must accomplish this even with 
bloodshed and at the loss of friends, life, and reputation. 
Milton, in so many points like Cromwell, though in more 
like Brown (T speak not of his genius, but of his character). 



248 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOIIN BROWN. [1856. 

understood this, — and alsa that there is a divine antinomi- 
anisni as well as a loose and diabolic one. Therefore he 
said in one of those matchless choral passages of the 
*' Samson,'' — 

" Just are the ways of God, 
And justifiable to men ; 
Unless there be who tliink not God at all. 
If any be, they walk obscure ; 
For of such doctrine never was there school, 
But the heart of the fool, — • 
And no man therein doctor but himself. 

Yet more there be who doulit His ways not just, 
As to His own edicts found contiadicting ; 



As if they would confine th' Interminable, 

And tie Him to His own prescript, 

Who made our laws to bind us, not Himself, 

And hath full right to exempt 

Whom it so pleases Him by choice 

From national obstriction, without taint 

Of sin or legal debt ; 

For with His own laws He can best dispense." 

This is a high doctrine, applying only to heroes; but it 
holds good of John Brown, and particularly in regard to 
the Pottawatomie executions of May, 1856. Such a deed 
must not be judged by the every-day rules of conduct, which 
distinctly forbid violence and the infliction of death for 
private causes; branding the act, and justly, by the odious 
names of " murder " and " assassination." The cause here 
was a public one ; the crisis was momentous, and yet invisible 
to all but the eyes divinely appointed to see it and to foresee 
its consequences. Upon the swift and secret vengeance of 
John Brown in that midnight raid hinged the future of Kan- 
sas, as we can now see ; aud on that future again lunged the 
destinies of the whole country. Had Kansas in the death- 
struggle of 1856 fallen a prey to the slaveholders, slave- 
holding would to-day be the law of our imperial democracy; 
the sanctions of the Union and the Constitution would now 
be on the side of human slavery, as they were from 1840 to 
1860. And the turning point in the Kansas conflict was 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 249 

that week of May, 1856, when the whole power of the 
United States was shamefully put forth to conquer the little 
town of Lawrence, to abase the free spirit of the Northern 
farmers on the Kansas prairies, ami to give supremacy 
to the vilest and most- inhuman elements in the American 
nationality. The attack on Lawrence (May 20) was coin- 
cident in time with the close of Charles Sumner's great 
speech in the Senate on the " Crime against Kansas ; " and 
the temporary downfall of the Free-State cause west of 
the Missouri was echoed at Washington in the contrived 
and almost completed murder of Sumner by the weapons of 
South Carolina, as he sat in the Senate chamber two days 
after (May 22, 1856). One shout of exultation went up 
from the slaveholding States over the two events ; and one 
thrill of anguish ran through the free North when the 
tidings came in the same day from Kansas and from Wash- 
ington. A venerable citizen of Boston, — Josiah Quincy, 
then in his eighty-fifth year, — who had seen the Indepen- 
dence of America declared by Jefferson and maintained by 
Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette, raised his aged voice 
in protest against the degeneracy of their descendants. 
Writing to Judge Hoar, of Concord (May 27, 1856), Mr. 
Quincy said : — 

" My mind is in no state to receive pleasure from social 
scenes and friendly intercourse. I can think and speak of 
nothing but the outrages of slaveholders at Kansas, and the 
outrages of slaveholders at Washington, — outrages which, 
if not met in the spirit of our fathers of the Revolution 
(and I see no sign that they will be), our liberties are but a 
name, and our Union proves a curse. But, alas ! sir, I see 
no principle of vitality in what is called freedom in these 
times. The palsy of death rests on the spirit of freedom in 
the so-called free States." 

Thus Quincy spoke ; and in the same sense, to a result 
such as Quincy could not foresee, John Brown had already 
acted. He also felt that " our liberties are but a name and 
our Union proves a curse," if the deeds done at Lawrence, 
preceded by murders and followed by the flight of freemen 
from Kansas, were not to be met with retaliation. The 
blow at Pottawatomie followed, as a signal to every Kansas 



250 LIFE AXD LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

ruffian that blood must recompense blood. For every cold- 
blooded murder heretofore perpetrated, — for Dow, Barber, 
Brown, Stewart, and Jones, — the sabres of Pottawatomie 
requited life with life. Five representative defenders of : 
slavery were struck down in a single night, in reprisal for 
the five sons of liberty slain in the previous six months. 
The lesson was terrible, but salutary ; the oppressors of 
Kansas never forgave it, but they could not forget it, — and 
it wrought their defeat in the end. It shocked the Free- 
State men, no doubt ; but it soon gave them confidence that 
God's justice did not sleep, and that their cause was not 
lost. I have already cited what Charles Robinson said of it 
in 1878, — that he had always believed John Brown to be 
the author of the Pottawatomie executions, because he was 
the only man then in Kansas who comprehended the situ- 
ation, and had the nerve to strike the blow. John Brown, 
Jr., in this respect agrees with Robinson, and says : "It has 
never been asserted by me, nor by any one else who compre- 
hended the situation at that time, that the killing of those 
men at Pottawatomie was wholly on account of the emer- 
gency in that neighborhood. That blow was struck for 
Kansas and the slave ; and he who attempts to limit its 
object to a mere settlement of accounts with a few proslav- 
ery desperadoes on that creek, shows himself incapable of 
rendering a just judgment in the case." When Jason Brown 
met his father for the first time after the executions, near 
the empty cabins from which the Brown families had fled for 
safety to Osawatomie, the tender-hearted son said : "Father, 
did you have anything to do with that bloody affair on the 
Pottawatomie ? " Brown's reply was, " I approved of it." 
Jason then said : " Whoever did it, the act was uncalled for 
and wicked." Brown answered, " God is my judge, — the 
people of Kansas will yet justify my course." This predic- 
tion was true. An old friend of his, James Hanway, who 
lived near the scene of the executions, and at first strongly 
abhorred them, has given this testimony on the point : — ■ 

" In tho month of January, IB.W, the last tinio I mot John Brown 
before he left the Territory for the la.'^t time, lie asked me, in the 
presence of my family, ' What do the old settlers now think about 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 251 

the affair ? ' alluding to tlie killing of the Doyles, etc. My reply 
was, ' A great change in public opinion has taken jilace ; it is not 
now looked upon with that feeling of horror which prevailed soon 
after the event took place.' Browu replied, ' I knew all good men 
who loved freedom, when they became better acquainted with the 
circumstances connected with the case, would approve of it. The 
public mind was not ready then to accept such hard blows.' Captain 
Brown firmly believed that he was an instrument in the hands of 
Providence to smite the slave-power, and roll back its blasphemous 
threats. The question with him was the proper time to strike the 
blow. He thought the hour had come, and the Pottawatomie tragedy 
was the result." 

The scene of tliis act of wild ji^stice was one of the most 
romantic in Kansas. The broad prairies of that State are 
fertile and sunny, but they have the tameness and sameness 
of landscape that soon wearies the eye of the traveller. 
Around Osawatomie, however, this monotony is broken by 
winding streams, swelling hills, and steep ravines ; while 
along the streams is a noble border of woodland. That in- 
stinctive love of the picturesque which led John Brown and 
his sons to the forests of Ohio, the mountains of the Adiron- 
dac wilderness, and the snow-capped heights of California, 
guided their steps in Kansas also, and pitched their tents in 
this wildest tract of a tame region. Two copious rivers, 
though condescending to bear the commonplace name of 
"creek," — the Marais des Cygnes, and the Pottawatomie, — 
unite near Osawatomie, in what was then the home of Indian 
tribes, to form the Osage Pdver, the largest tributary of 
the Missouri below the mountain-torrents. Each of these 
Kansas rivers is formed by tributary streams, and all wind 
gracefully among fringes of woodland, below which in many 
places the banks shelve steeply down to the lazy waters.^ 

. ^ \''''J*!^^ Osawatomie, August 21, 1882, and made this entry in my 
journal : Crossed the Marais des Cygnes by a bridge on the road from Paola 
between the msane asylum and the village of Osawatomie, -a large stream 
with high banks, heavily timbered, perhaps one hundred feet wide at this 
season, and in some places twenty or thirty feet deep ; so that men fordin- 
It have often been d rownod. It was on the northern bank of this river, one 
mi e or more from the village, that John Brown was encamped (August 29, 
dO) before the battle of Osawatomie. I saw one of Brown's friends - the 



252 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Beyond this forest selvage stretches broad and grand the 
grassy, flower-enamelled prairie, now dotted at many points 
with orchards, groves, farm-houses and villages, — but in 
1856 a virgin soil, which the plow had only scarred a little 
now and then, and over which ranged and flitted countless 
beasts and birds, with here and there a herd of cattle, or 
a group of half-wild horses. The Indian hunter pursued 
his game there, and the buffalo had not wholly forsaken his 
>old grazing-ground. The villages of Osawatomie, which 
gave John Brown a distinctive name, and of Lane, which 
has grown up near the old ford of the Pottawatomie in 
the township of that ilk, once known as Dutch Henry's 
Crossing, are neither of tl^em large or specially flourishing, 
but a historic interest attaches to both from their asso- 
ciation with Brown's career. Lane is southwest of Osa- 
watomie, and therefore, as the river runs, above it ; and 
above the old Crossing, where there is now a modern 
bridge, are the neighborhoods which Brown visited on 
that tragic night. Professor Spring, the latest historian 
of Kansas, thus describes the country as he saw it three 
years ago : — 

'' The Dutch Henry's Crossing of 1882 is a paradise of rural peace 
and happiness. The fiercest sounds I heard during a visit to that 
region were the clatter of agricultural machinery and the fervent 
hallelujahs of a ' holiness ' camp-meeting. Here quiet and security 
seem to have reached their utmost Umit. The Pottawatomie — half 
hmpid, with slighter mixtures of discolorins: mud than any Kansas 
stream that I have seen — winds languidly between beautiful. y 
shaded banks toward the Marais des Cygues. The vast fields of 

Sniders of the Trading Post massacre, — a blacksmith of Osawatomie now, 
standing tall and swarthy in his shop at the village ; and tlien drove the 
next morning two miles farther west to the log-house of Eev. S. L. Adair, 
on the high prairie along which the Missonrians came the morning of the 
fight. The road from the village to Mr. Adair's is steep and rocky, — more 
so than any I have yet seen in Kansas. His house is the one he built in 
the spring of 18.')5, though it has since been enlarged ; it is the common 
cabin of squared logs, chinked in with clay, and the main room has two 
beds in it. In this room John Brown was sick with typhoid fever for six 
weeks, in 1858, — Kagi and the Adairs taking care of him. The house has 
orebards about it, and in front two or three pine-trees which Mr. Adair 
brought from the East about 1860, one of which is now twenty feet high." 



I 



185G] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 253 

ct)ru and wlieat, with their picturesque borders of orange hedge, lie 
mapped upon the rolling prairie in every direction, — 

* As quietly as spots of sky 
Anioiig the evening clouds.' 

" The Dutch Henry's Crossing of 1856 stands in antithesis to all 
this Arcadian repose. Then there was no law but force, no rule but 
violence, in the Territory of Kansas. A veritable reign of terror was 
inaugurated. Marauders were prowling about in whose eyes nothing 
was sacred that stood in the way of their passions. The opposing 
factious into whose hands the question of slavery or no slavery for 
Kansas had fallen, hunted each other like wolves. Pistol-shots and 
sword-slits were the prevailiug style of argument. For puri)oses 
of anibusli and concealment this location was admirably cliosen. 
The surface is cut up by gulches afi\)rding natural defences which 
ten resolute men could hold against a hundred. I spent half a day in 
exploriug this region with one of Brown's men, who had not been on 
the ground for twenty-six years, in an effort to recover the exact site 
of Brown's bivouac of May 23. But so marked is the change which 
time has wrought in the landscape, so great the number and similar- 
ity of the ravines, that all our efforts failed. Indeed, notliing here 
remains as it was in the Border period. The earliest cabins have 
been pulled down, frontier characteristics are gone, and the customs 
of older civilizations appear. The ford retains its quaint and primitive 
name of Dutch Henry's Crossing, but has ceased to be used. The 
once broad and travelled road leading down to it has now shrunk to 
a narrow, weed-choked path, right acn)ss which lies a half-decayed 
tree. I found one direct, and to ine pathetic, memorial of the Potta- 
watomie raid (even that is being rapidly obliterated), — the grave 
of three of its victims. They were buried coffinless in orie shallow 
trench. No stone or tablet marks their resting-place, — only a slight 
heaving of the turf, in an open tield near the ford." 

The two Shermans, — Dutch Henry and Dutch Wil- 
liam, — who lived here and gave their name to the ford, 
were brothers, from Oldenburg in Germany, who had been 
long in America, and were among the earliest white settlers 
of this region. They were men of harsh and brutal charac- 
ter, who profited by the neighborhood of peaceful Indians 
to advance their own interests at the expense of the red men, 
and who looked upon Indians and negroes with equal con- 
tempt. Their house was a sort of tavern, as many of the 
prairie cabins w^ere in those days, and their most acceptable 



2o4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

visitors were the proslavery men from Missouri and farther 
south. At this very time, in the words of John Brown the 
younger, " the Doyles, Wilkinsons, and Shermans were fur- 
nishing places of rendezvous and active aid to the armed 
men who had sworn to kill us and others." With the Browns 
it was simply a question as to which, to use a Western phrase, 
should " first get the drop " on the others. Upon this point, 
which of late years has been the subject of controversy, the 
testimony is clear and ample. The men who suffered death 
were not only leagued with the Missouri invaders, but luid 
themselves committed gross outrages, such as they had 
threatened a year before their death. An early citizen of 
Kansas (now or recently a police magistrate at Salina), Au- 
gust Bondi by name, went to settle, in May, 185o, on the 
Musquito branch of the Pottawatomie, four miles from Dutch 
Henry's. Being a German, and having two compatriots 
(Theodore Wiener and Jacob Benjamin) owning near him, 
Bondi went to call on Henry Sherman, whom he had heard 
of as a German also, and therefore sought his acquaintance. 
After a short conversation with him, Henry Sherman said 
" he had heard that Bondi and Benjamin were" Freesoilers, 
and therefore would advise them to clear out, or they might 
meet the fate of Baker," — a Vermont man whom the Bor- 
der Ruffians had taken from his cabin on the Marais des 
Cygnes, whipped, and hanged upon a tree, but had cut him 
down before death, and released him upon his promise to 
leave Kansas. Allen Wilkinson, who was a member of the 
usurping Legislature, talked to Bondi in much the same way. 
The two Germans (Bondi and Benjamin, for Wiener had 
not yet arrived) took counsel what should be done. Benja- 
min, who had worked several days at the settlement on the 
Marais des Cygnes, reported that no hel]) could be expected 
thence, where the settlers were all from Missouri or Arkan- 
sas. He had heard, however, of a small settlement of Ohio 
men about five miles to the northeast, and both agreed that 
these ought to be seen. Next morning Benjamin went there, 
and about noon returned with Frederick I'rown, who brought 
word from his three brothers that they would always be 
found ready to assist Bondi and his friend. No attack was 
made that summer, during which there was a large immi- 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 255 

gration into the Pottawatomie region, both from the North 
and the South, — the Northern men in the majority, but the 
proslavery men having the advantage of being generally 
well armed and under better organization. On their side, 
too, were the gangs of robbers and murderers on the borders 
of jMissouri and the Indian Territory. 

But in the spring of 1856 the Shermans and their com- 
rades began to carry out their threats. George Grant, who 
then lived on the Pottawatomie, testified in 1879 : — 

'' My father, John T. Grant, came from Oneida County, N. Y.. 
and settled on Pottawatomie Creek, in 1854. We were near neigh- 
bors of the Shermans, of the Doyles, and of Wilkinson, who were 
afterward killed. There was a company of Georgia Border Ruffians 
encamped on the Marais des Cygnes, about four miles away from us, 
who had l>een committing outrages upon the Free-State people ; and 
these proslavery men were in constant communication with them. 
They had a courier who went backw'ard and forward carrying mes- 
sages. When we heard on the Pottawatomie that the Border Ruf- 
fians were threatening Lawrence, and that the Free-State men wanted 
help, we immediately began to prepare to go to their assistance. 
Frederick Brown, son of John Brown, went to a store at Dutch 
Henry's Crossing, kept by a Mr. Morse, from Michigan, known as 
old Squire Morse, a quiet, inoffensive old Free-State man, living 
there with his two boys, and bought some bars of lead, — say twenty 
or thirty pounds. He brought the lead to my father's house on Sun- 
day morning, and my brother Henry C. Grant and my sister Mary 
spent the whole day in running Sharpe's and other rifle bullets for 
the company. As Frederick Brown was bringing this lead to our 
house, he passed by Henry Sherman's house, and several proslavery 
men, among them Doyle and liis sous, William Sherman, and others, 
were sitting on the fence, and inquired what he was going to do with 
it. He tfdd them he was going to run it into bullets for Free-State 
guns. They were apparently much incensed at his reply, as tlioy 
knew that the Free- State company was then preparing to go to 
Lawrence. The next morning, after the company had started to go 
to Lawrence, a number of these proslavery men — Wilkinson, Doyle, 
his two sons, and William Sherman, known as 'Dutch Bill' — took 
a rope and went to old Squire Morse's house, and said they were 
going to hang him for selling the lead to the Free-State men. They 
frightened the old man terribly ; but finally told him he must leave 
the country before eleven o'clock, or they would hang him. Tliey 
then left and went to the Shermans' and went to drinking. About 



256 lAl'i: AND LKTTKHS OF JOHN lilfOWN. [1856. 

eleven o'clock ;i portion of tliein, li;ilf drunk, w(ait back to Mr. 
Monso's, and were goin^ to kill him with an axe. Jlis little boys — 
one was only nine years old — set up a violent crying, and l)eggecl 
for tiieir father's lifi;. 'J'lnty finally gave liiin until sundown to leave. 
Ih' left everything an<l cauie at oiuu; to our hou.se. He was nearly 
frightcnied to death, lie cani(! to our house carrying a blanket and 
h;ading his little lioy l)y the hand. When night caine he was .so 
afraid that lie would not stay in the house, but went out doors and 
8l(4)t on the ]iriiiri(! in tlic gra.^s. For a few days he lay about in the 
brush, most of the time getting his meals at our house. He was 
tl(en taken violently ill and died in a v<;ry short time. Dr. (jlil|iatrick 
attend<;d him during his bri(;f illness, and said that his (hrath was 
din-ctly caus(wl by th(! fright and excit(tnient of that terrible day when 
he was drivt^n from his store. Tin; only thing they had against Mr. 
Mor.se was his selling the lead, and this he had previously bought of 
Henry Sherman, who had brought it from Kansas City. Whih; the 
Free-State company was gone to Lawrence, Hcmry Sherman^ came 
to my father's house and said: ' We liave ordered old Morse out f)f 
the country, and he has got t<» go, and a good iiumy others of the 
Fre(!-State families have; got to go.' 'i'iie gc-neral feeling among the 
Free-State; p(;oj)le was one of terror while the company was gone, 
as we. did not know at what moment the Georgia rullians uiiglit come 
in and drive us all out." 



1 Mr. Foster, already quoted, who kin^w thf Slicrmans and their repu- 
tation, tells this story of the Itiiitiility ol " Dnldi I'.iii," who was one of tlie 
five men executed hy Brown : " In the spring of 18.'>6 William Sherman 
had tak(!n a fanc^y to tlie dang]it(!r of one of his Fn;e-Stato neigh})ors, and 
had been refused hy lier. The next time he met her he u.sed the most vile 
and insulting languiige toward her, in the ini<lst of whieh Frederick Brown 
appeared and was besought for i)roteetion, which was readily granted. 
Sheruian then drew his knife, and, speaking to tlio young woman, said : 
'The day is soon coming when all tin; damned Abolitionists will be driven 
out or hanged ; we are not going to make any lialf-way work about it ; and 
as for you, Miss, you shall either marry me or I '11 drive this knife to iho 
hilt imtil I find your life.' Frederick Brown (luietly warned Sheruian 
that if he attempted any violence he would be taken care of ; when, wilh 
an oath and threat, Sherman left tlieni." His viler brother, Henry SIht- 
nian, who escaped Brown's avenging hand, was .sliot not long afterward, I 
have lieard, by one of P.rowJi's .soldiers, — not a member of the party wliich 
slew William Sherman. The ehii'f wonder was, tliat a wret(di so outra- 
geous as Dutch Henry, in a country so full of tumult as Soutliern Kansas, 
liad not been killed .sooner. His house lia.s long been destroyed, and only 
a few api)h'-trees remain to mark tlie spot where he lived and persecuted 
his Free-State iiei'/hljors. 



1856.] THE rOTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 257 

Notwithstanding the controversy which has so long been 
kept up concerning these executions, the facts are plain and 
simple, and are now almost universally accepted. The char- 
acter of the men slain was notoriously bad, as has been 
shown ; and they had long been plotting with the Missou- 
rians, and more recently with Buford's armed colonists from 
the South, to exterminate the Free-State settlers along the 
Pottawatomie and its tributaries. While the Free-State 
men were on their way to the defence of Lawrence, and 
their families were left unprotected, word was sent to the 
camp of John Brown, Jr., who commanded the Pottawato- 
mie Rifles, that the Free-State families along the Creek 
were to be attacked and driven out. This news followed 
hard upon the tidings that Lawrence had been captured and 
burned by the Missouri ruffians. After that dismal mes- 
sage, John Brown, who was a member of his son's company, 
proposed marching at once on Lawrence. But word soon 
came from that town requesting the company not to come, 
since the ruffians had gone back to Missouri, and the Free- 
State men were short of provisions. A vote was therefore 
taken in the company not to visit Lawrence, but to go into 
camp near the house of Captain Shore on the Middle Ottawa 
Creek ; and this was done on the night of May 22. The 
place is about five miles from the town of Palmyra, and 
not moi*e than ten miles from where Brown afterward won 
the fight of Black Jack. James Hanway, already quoted, 
was a member of the Pottawatomie Rifles, and a witness 
of entire credibility. He says : — 

"When we were in camp on Middle Ottawa Treok, in Franklin 
County, a young man, son of Mr. Grant, ^ brought the intclhgence 
that certain proslavery citizens of the Pottawatomie had visited some 
of the Free-State families, and threatened them with death, and thcsir 
property with destruction, if they did not leave the neighborhood by 
the following Saturday or Sunday night. Old John Brown, who had 
a firm belief that Providence directed his steps in all undcrtakini^^s, 
immediately raised a small party of men, and visited those who had 
been the instigators of this tlireatened movement. I think it was 
May 23, about two p. m., that John Brown and his party left our 

^ Others say another was the mesbcnger. 
17 



258' LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

cainp. When Brown was packing up his camp kettles, etc., at 
INliddle Ottawa Creek, I was invited to become one of the party, by 
one of the eight who formed the company. I was informed at the 
time of the purpose of the expedition, and the necessity there was to 
carry out the programme. 

" The following day we camped at Palmyra. We had heard of the 
arrest of Govei'uor Robinson, and our object was to rescue him if 
they brought liim by tlie Santa Fe road to Lecotnpton. On Sunday 
morning, May 25, we broke camp, and took up quarters near Prairie 
City, on Liberty Hill. It was then and there tliat four persons came 
ridiiig across the i)rairie, and reported what had taken place on the 
Ptrttawatomie. That night we camped in the yard of Ottawa Jones, 
and during the niglit Jolm Brown's party, who had left our company 
several days before, made their appearance. I was witli Jason Brown 
in what was called the Brown tent. John Brown asked if his son 
John was there. I replied no ; he was in Ottawa Jones's house. 
This was about the middle of the night." 

Between the departure of John Brown from his son's 
camp early in the afternoon of May 23, and his return 
thereto in the night of JNIay 25-26, the deed of death was 
done. Those who accomplished it were under Brown's 
orders, and were directed in all their movements by him. 
Of this there is now no doubt, although at the time, and for 
many years afterward, John Brown's presence at the execu- 
tions was denied ; and this denial was supposed to be sup- 
ported by his words. But upon inquiry of all those who 
talked with him on the subject, it does not appear that he 
ever denied his presence at the scene, while he constantly 
justified the act. One of the earliest witnesses has already 
been cited, — Jason Brown. John BroAvn, Jr., was not in- 
formed of the deed by his father. An old Kansas settler, 
E. A. Coleman, now living near Lawrence, where he was in 
1855-56, bears witness thus : — 

''John Brown frequently visited me at my house, and stayed with 
me. In fact, my latch-string was always out for such men. John 
Brown knew where his friends lived, and could go to them night or 
day. One evening, not long before the fight at Osawatomie, we ate 
supper out of doors in the shade of my cabin at five o'clock. As 
soon as supper was over, Cai)tain Brown commenced pacing ba('l< 
and forth in the shade of the house. Mv wife stood l>v the dishes, 



1856] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 259 

and I sat in my chair. I finally said, * Captain Brown, I want to 
ask you one question, and you can answer it or not as you please, 
and I shall not be offended.' He stopped his pacing, looked nie 
square in the face, and said, ' What is it "i ' Said I, ' Captain 
Brown, did you kill those five men on the Pottawatomie, or did you 
not f ' He replied, ' I did not; but I do not pretend to say they 
were not killed by my order ; and in doing so I believe I was doing 
God's service.' My wife spoke and said, ' Then, Captain, you think 
that God uses you as an instrument in his hands to kill men f ' 
Brown replied, ' I think he has used me as an instrument to kill 
men ; and if I live, I think he will use me as an instrument to kill a 
good many more' He went on and said: 'Mr. Coleman, I will 
tell you all about it, and you can judge whether I did right or wrong. 
I had heard that these men wei'e coming to the cabin that my son and 
I were staying in [I think he said the next Wednesday night] to 
set fire to it and shoot us as we ran out. Now, that was not proof 
enough for me; but I thontrht I would satisfy myself, and if they 
had committed murder in their hearts, I would be justified in killing 
them. I was an old surveyor, so I disguised myself, took two men 
to carry the chain, and a flagman. The lines not being run, I knew 
that as soon as they saw me they would come out to find out where 
their lines would come.' And taking a book from his pocket, he 
said, 'Here is what every man said that was killed. I ran my 
lines close to each man's house. The first that came out said, " Is 
that my line, sir ? " I replied, " I cannot tell ; I am running test 
lines." I then said to him, " You have a fine country here; great 
pity there are so many Abolitionists in it." " Yes, but by God we 
will soon clean them all out," he said. I kept looking through my 
instrument, making motions to the flagman to move either way, and 
at the same time I wrote every word they said. Then I said, '• I 
hear there are some bad men about here by the name of Brown." 
" Yas, there are ; but next Wednesday night we will kill them." So 
I ran the lines by each one of their houses, and I took down every 
word ; and here it is, word for word, by each one. [Shows wife and 
me the book]. I was satisfied that each one of them had committed 
murder in his heart, and according to the Scriptures they were guilty 
of murder, and I felt justified in having them killed; but, as I told 
you, I did not do it myself.' He then said, ' Now, Mr. Coleman, 
what do you think ? ' I told him I thought he did right, and so did 
my wife. This statement we are both willing to be sworn to." ^ 

1 See " The Kansas Memorial," 1879, pp. 196, 197. I have a letter from 
Mr. Coleman, written in 188.">, in whicli he repeats tliis striking conversa- 
tion, with some variations, but in substance as recited above. He says : 



£G0 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

John Browu, Jr., has thus expressed himself concerniug 
the mystery wliich long concealed the true facts in this af- 
fair ; and no person who knows him will doubt his wjard : 

'' The only statement that I ever heard my father make in regard 
to this was, ' I did not myself kill any of those men at Pottawatomie, 
but I am as fully responsible as if I did.' This statement of his is 
strictly in accordance with the facts, as I have now abundant evi- 
dence. The statements vi others, giving a ditferent version, I believe 

"The Browns were hunted as we hunt wolves to- day ; and because they un- 
dertook to protect themselves, they are called cold-blooded murderers, — 
merely because they ' had the dare,' and were contented to live and die as 
God intended them to. Brown was a Bible-man, — he believed it all ; 
and though 1 am not, I give him credit for being honest, and the most 
consistent so-called Christian I have ever met. Brown and his sons had 
claims, and workeil them, as I did mine, when these devils were not prowl- 
ing about, killing a man now and then, stealing our stock and running 
them oif to Missouri." 

John Brown, Jr.'s, version of the surveying adventure, and doubtless 
the more correct one, is as follows : " Early in the spring of 1856, Colonel 
Buford, of Alabama, arrived with a regiment of armed men, mostly from 
South Carolina and Georgia. They came with the openly declared purpose 
to make Kansas a slave State at all hazards. A company of these men was 
reported to us as being encamped near the Marais des Cygnes, a little south 
of the town now called Bantoul, I think, and distant from our })lace about 
two miles. Father took his surveyor's compass, and with him four of my 
brothers, — Owen, Frederick, Salmon, and Oliver, — as chain-carriers, ax- 
juan, and marker, and found a section line which, on following, led through 
the camp of these men. The Georgians indulged in the utmost freedom of ex- 
pression. One of them, who ajipeared to be the leader of the comj)any, said : 
' We' ve come here to stay. We won't make no war on them as minds 
their own business ; but all the Abolitionists, such as them damned Browns 
over tliere, we' re going to whip, drive out, or kill, — any way to get shut of 
them, by God.' The elder Doyle was already there among them, having 
come from tlie Pottawatomie, a distance of nine miles, to show them the 
best fords of the river and creek." 

Upon reading Mr. Coleman's letter, John Brown has written me thus : 
"While we had in tlie spring of 1856 abundant and entirely satisfactory 
evidence that our family were marked for destruction, I am not aware of 
any information having been received by any of our number that a par- 
ticular day had been decided u{)on for the undertaking. It is probable 
tiiat father related to Mr. Coleman the story of his running that line 
through a camp of Buford's men and of the information he obtained ; but 
further than this I think he did not go. The running of that line occurred 
a few days before our second call to assist Lawrence, May 20, 1856." 



1859.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 261 

have been made in good faith upon reports which they supposed were 
true, or upon their interpretation of father's words as given above. I 
have yet to learn of any authentic statement made by him touching 
this matter which in substance differs from his words as I have given 
them. In the fall of 1856 I was told by one who as I supposed was 
in possession of the facts, that when my father aud his men, on their 
return from our camp near Ottawa Creek, had reached Middle Creek, 
liis party divided; that he and some of the men crossed the Mai-ais 
des Cygues to reconnoitre the position of a party of Buford's men, and 
that consequently lie M'as several miles away when those men were 
killed on the Pottawatomie. I accepted this statement as true, and 
whenever I had occasion to refer to the matter I stated it in accord- 
ance with what I supposed was fact. It was not until July, 1860, 
that I was more correctly informed by one who had himself partici- 
pated in that affair. At that time a large reward was offered by the 
State of Virginia for my capture. Soon after, stimulated by that 
reward, kidnappers attemptetl the work of my abductiun ; aud from 
that time until the close of the Civil War other matters more urgent 
claimed my attention than the correction of my own statements in ' 
regard to Pottawatomie, or of Mr. Redpath's mistake, which I have 
no doubt was as innocently made as my own."^ 

The most direct statement made by any of the party who 
accompanied John Brown on his expedition of May 23, 
that was made public before the Civil War, is, I think, a 
letter from one of his sons, who undertook, a few weeks 
after his father's death, to answer a question on the subject 
which was asked of his mother. She had no knowledge con- 
cerning the matter, as she told me in 1882 ; but knoAving 
that her son Salmon had been Brown's constant companion 
in Kansas, she requested him to reply. He was then living 
with her at North Elba, and he wrote as follows : 

North Elba, Dec. 27, 1859. 
Dear Sir, — Your letter to my mother was received to-night. 
You wish me to give you the facts in regard to the Pottawatomie 
execution, or murder, and to know whether my father was a partici- 
pator in the act. I was one of his company at the time of tlie homi- 
cide, and was never away from him one hour at a time after we took 
up arms in Kansas; therefore I say positively that he was not a 

1 In confirmation of this, T may say that my last letters fi'om Mr. Eed- 
path continued to declare that John Brown was not at the execntions. 



262 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

participator in the deed, — although I should think none the less of 
hhn if he had been there ; for it was the grandest thing that was 
ever done in Kansas. It was all that saved the Territory from being 
overrun with drunken hiud-pirates from the Southern States. That 
was the first act in the history of Kansas which proved to the demon 
of Slavery that there was as much room to give blows as to take 
them. It was done to save life, and to strike terror through their 

wicked ranks. 

Yours respectfully, 

Salmon Brown. 

The member of Brown's company of eight who first dis- 
closed the details of the expedition of May 23-25, was James 
Townsley, a jNlaryland man, who had emigrated to Kansas 
in October, 1855, and settled on the Pottawatomie^ a mile 
west of the present tow^n of Greeley. This is several miles 
southwest of Dutch Henry's Crossing, and therefore higher 
up on the creek. Townsley had been a cavalry soldier in 
the United States army from 1839 to 1844, and had fought 
against Indians in Florida ; by trade he was a pointer, and 
he was an acquaintance of Martin and Jefferson Conway, 
w^ho like himself migrated from Maryland to Kansas, but 
were opposed to slavery. He set out from Baltimore with 
his wife and four children and eleven hundred dollars in 
money, and, leaving his family in Kansas City, went into 
the Pottawatomie region and bought a "claim," for which 
he paid eighty dollars, put up a rude cabin, and moved his 
family into it. They suffered much from cold during the 
winter, and were just beginning to plant their land in the 
spring, when Townsley, who had joined the " Pottawatomie 
Eifles " in April, was called upon to march for the protec- 
tion of Lawrence. This wms on the afternoon of May 21. 
What followed has thus been told by himself : — 

"About two miles south of Middle Creek we were joined by the 
Osawatomie company, under Captain Dayton, and proceeded to 
Mount V(>rnon, where we waited about two hours until the moon 
rose. We then marched all night, camping the next morning (the 
22d) for breakfast, near Ottawa Jones's. Before we arrived at tliis 
point news liad been received that Lawrence had been destroyed, and 
a question was raised whether we should retuni or go on. During 
the forenoon, however, we proceeded up Ottawa Creek to within 



i 



1856.1 THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 263 

about five miles of Palmyra, and went into camp near the residence 
of Captain Shore. Here we remained undecided over night. About 
noon the next day, the 23d, old John Br<»wn came to me and said he 
had just received information that trouble was expected on the Potta- 
watomie, and wanted to know if I would take my team and take him 
and his boys back, so that they could keep watch of what was going 
on. I told hiin I would do so. The party — con.sisting of John Brown, 
Frederick Bi-own, Owen Brown, Watson Brown, Oliver Bi-own, 
Henry Thompson (John Brown's son-in-law), and Mr. Wiener — were 
soon ready for the trip, and we started, as near as I can remember, 
about two o'clock p. M. All of the party except Mr. Wiener, who 
rode a pony, rode with me in my M\'igon. When within two or three 
miles of the Pottawatomie Creek we tinnied off the main road to the 
right, drove down into the edge of tlie timber between two deep ra- 
vines, and camped about one mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing. 
After my team was fed and the party had taken supper, Jolm Brown 
told me for the first time what he i)roposed to do. He said he wanted 
me to pilot the compjiny up to the forks of the creek, some five or 
six miles above, int(_> the neighborhood in winch I lived, and show 
them where all the proslavery men resided ; that he proposed to 
sweep the creek as be came down of all the proslavery men living on 
it. I positively refused to do it. He insisted upon it; but when 
he found that I would not go he decided to postpone the expedition 
until tlie following night. I then wanted to take my team and go 
home, but he refused to let me do so, and said I should remain with 
them. We remained in camp that night and all day the next day. 
Sometime after dark we were ordered to inarch." 

Townsley has related, not always in the same manner, and 
with more or less variation from the fact (as in the above 
statement, which is somewhat incorrect, though mainly 
true), how the five men were called out and despatched, — 
alleging that he had no hand in the actual slaughter, but 
that John Brown had.^ I have talked with those present, 
and find reason to doubt this. "Whatever Townsley 's part 
may have been, I am convinced that John Brown did not 
raise his own hand or discharge his weapon against his vic- 
tims. He was no less responsible for their death than if he 
had done so, and this he never denied. But for some reason 
he chose not to strike a blow himself; and this is what Sal- 
mon Brown meant when he declared that his father " was 
1 Owen Brown and Henry Thompson deny this. 



264 LIPE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

not a participator in the deed." It was a very narrow inter- 
pretation of the word " participator " which would permit 
such a denial ; but it was no doubt honestly made, although 
for the purpose of disguising what John Brown's real agency 
in the matter was. He was, in fact, the originator and per- 
former of these executions, although the hands that dealt 
the wounds were those of others. The actual executioners 
were but three or four. The weapons used were short cut- 
lasses, or artillery sabres, which had been originally worn by 
a military company in Ohio, and were brought from Akron 
in 1855 by John Brown. ^ They were straight and broad, 
like an old Roman sword, and were freshly ground for this 
expedition at the camp of John Brown, Jr.^ When the 
bodies of the dead were found, there went up a cry that they 
had been mutilated ; but this was because of the weapons 
used. Their death was speedy and with little noise, the use 
of fire-arms being forbidden. A single shot was fired during 
the five executions ; but when, ayd for what purpose, the 
witnesses are in dispute. The Doyles were first slain, then 

^ The swords used were not sabres exactl}', but weapons made like the 
Roman short-sword, of which six or eight had been given to Brown in 
Akron, Oliio, just before he went to Kansas, by General Bierce of that 
city, who took them from an old armory there. They had been the swords 
of an artillery company, then disbanded, which General Bierce had some- 
thing to do with, and there were also some guns and old bayonets among 
these arms. The bayonets would not fit any guns the Kansas people 
had ; and so in December, 1855, when the Browns went up to defend 
Lawrence for the first time, they fastened some of them on sticks, and 
intended to use them in defending breastworks. They were thrown 
loosely "into the bed of the wagon," — not set up about it for parade, as 
some have said. There were also some curved swords among these Akron 
arms. 

^ When Brown called for volunteers to go on a secret expedition, his son 
at first questioned the wisdom of reducing his main force in this way ; but 
as only eight men were wanted no serious opposition was made, and John 
Brown, Jr., says: "We aided him in his outfit, and I assisted in the 
sliarpening of his cutlasses. James Townsle\', who resided near Pottawa- 
tomie Creek, volunteered to returu with his team, and offered to point out 
the abodes of such as he thought should be disposed of. No man of our 
entire number could fail to understand that a retaliatory blow would fall ; 
yet when father and his little band departed, they were saluted by all our 
men with a rousing cheer." All the survivors of the " little band," except 
Townsley, deny that Brown "proposed to sweep the creek." 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 265 

V 

Wilkinson ; and finally the Shermans were visited, their 
guests captured and questioned, but only William Sherman 
executed. The testimony of James Harris, one of the com- 
rades of William Sherman, who was allowed to go unpun- 
ished, was given in these words before the Congressional 
Committee of 1856:^ — 

'' Ou Sunday morning, May 25, 1856, about two A. M., while my 
wife and child and myself were in bed in the house wliere we lived, 
near Henry Sherman's, we were aroused by a company of men who 
said they belonged to the Northern army, and who were each armed 
with a sabre and two revolvers, two of wliom I recognized ; namely, 
a Mr. Brown, whose given name I do not remember (commonly 
known by the appellation of ' old man Brown'), and his son Owen 
Brown. They came into the house and approached the bedside 
where we were lying, and ordered us, together with three other men 
who were in the same house with me, to surrender; that the Nortliern 
army was upon us, and it would be no use for us to resist. Tlie 
names of these otlier men wlia were then in the house with me were 
William Sherman and John S. Whiteman ; the other man I did 
not know. They were stopping with me that night. They had 
bought a cow from Henry Sherman, and intended to go home the 
next morning. When they came up to the bed, some had drawn 
sabres in their hands, and some revolvers. They then took into their 
possession two rifles and a bowie-knife, which I had there in the 
room (there was but one room in my house), and afterwards ran- 
sacked the whole establishment in search of ammunition. They 
then took one of these three men, who were staying in my house, 
out. (This was the man whose name I did not know.) He came 
back. They then took me out, and asked me if there were any 
more men about the place. I tcdd them there were not. They 
searched the place, but found no others but us four. They asked 
me where Henry Sherman was. (Henry was a brother to William 
Sherman.) I told them he was out on the plains in search of some 
cattle which he had lost. They asked me if I had ever taken any 
hand in aiding proslavery men in coming to the Territory of Kansas, 
or had ever taken any hand in the last troubles at Lawrence ; they 
asked me whether I had ever done the Free-State party any harm, or 
ever intended to do that party any harm ; they asked me what made 

1 James Hanway, who talked with Harris more than once after the 
affair, says that this testimony differed from the accounts Harris privately 
gave. 



266 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

me live at such a place. I then answered that I could get higher 
wages there than anywhere else. They asked nie if there M'ere any 
hridles or saddles about the premises. I told them there was one 
saddle, which they took ; and they also took possession of Henry 
Sherman's horse, which I had at my place, and made me saddle him. 
They then said if I would answer no to all the questions «-hich they 
had asked me, they would let me loose. Old Mr. Brown and his sou 
then went into the house with me. The other three men — Mr. Wil- 
liam Sherman, Mr. Whiteman, and the, stranger — were in the house 
all this time. After old man Brown and his son went into the 
house with me, old man Brown asked Mr. Sherman to go out with 
him ; and Mr. Sherman then went out with old Mr. Brown, and an- 
other man came into the house in Brown's place. I heard nothing 
more for about fifteen minutes. Two of the Northern army, as they 
styled themselves, stayed in with us until we heard a cap burst, and 
then these two men left. That morning, about ten o'clock, I found 
William Sherman dead in the creek near my house. I was lookiug 
for him ; as he had not come back, I thought he had been murdered. 
I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined him. 
Mr. Whiteman was with me. Sherman's skull was split open in 
two places, and some of his brains was washed out by the water. A 
large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off except 
a little piece of skin on one side. We buried him." 

INIr. Hanway used to declare that this James Harris told 
him that when the avenging party first entered the house 
his wife supposed they were Missouri men, arrived there for 
the purpose of driving out the Free-State settlers. Mrs. 
Wilkinson, an unfortunate woman who had tried in vain to 
keep her hvisband from engaging in the outrages against 
their Free-State neighbors, was visited early in the morn- 
ing after the executions by Dr. Gilpatrick and Mr. Grant, 
two Free-State men, who went to her house (which was the 
post-office) to get their mail. They found the poor Avoman 
weeping, and saying that a party of men had been to the 
house during the night and taken her husband out ; she had 
heard that morning that Mr. Doyle had been killed within 
the night, and she was afraid that her husband had been 
killed also. Among other reasons that she gave for fearing 
this, he had said to her the night before that there was going 
to be an attack made upon the Free-State men, and that 
by the next Saturday night there would not be a Free-State 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 267 

settler left on the creek. These, she said, were his last 
words to her the night before as they were going to sleep. 
Her testimony before the Congressional Committee was as 
follows : — 

. . . " Ou the 25th of May last, somewhere between the hours of 
midnight and daybreak, I cannot say exactly at wliat hour, after we 
all had retired to bed, we were disturbed by the barking of the dog. 
I was sick with the measles, and vyoke up Mr. Wilkinson, and asked 
him if he heard the noise, and what it meant. He said it was only 
some one passing about, and soon after was again asleep. It was 
not long before the dog raged and barked furiously, awakening me 
once more ; pretty soon 1 heard footsteps as of men approaching ; 
saw one pass by the window, and some one knocked at the door. I 
asked, ' Who is that ? ' No one answered. I awoke my husband, 
who asked, ' Who is that ? ' Some one replied, ' I want you to 
tell me the way to Dutch Henry's.' He commenced to tell them, 
and they said, ' Come out and show us.' He wanted to go, but I 
would not let him ; lie then told them it was difficult to find his 
clothes, and could tell them as well without going out of doors. The 
men out of doors after that stepped back, and I thoiight I could hear 
them whispering ; but they immediately returned, and as they ap- 
proaclied, one of them asked my husband, ' Are you a Northern 
armist"?' He answered, 'I am.' I understood the answer to 
mean that my husband was opposed to the Northern or Free-Soil 
party. I cannot say that I understood the question. My husband 
was a proslavery man, and was a member of the Territorial Legisla- 
ture held at Shawnee Mission. When my husband said, ' I am,' 
one of them said, ' You are my prisoner; do you surrender?' He 
said, ' Gentlemen, I do.' They said, ' Open the door.' Mr. Wil- 
kinson told them to wait till he made a light, and they replied, ' If 
you don't open it, we will open it for you.' He opened the door 
against my wishes ; four men came in ; my husband was told to put 
on his clothes, and they asked him if there were not more men about. 
They searched for arms, and took a gun and powder-flask, — all the 
weapon that was about the house. I begged them to let Mr. Wil- 
kinson stay with me, saying that I was sick and helpless, and could 
not stay by myself. The old man, who seemed to be in command, 
looked at me, and then around at the children, and re})lied, ' You 
have neighbors.' I said, ' So I have ; but they are not here, and I 
cannot go for them.' The old man replied, ^ It matters not.' They 
then took my husband away. One of them came back and took two 
saddles; I asked what they were going to do with him, and he said, 
' Take him a prisoner to the camp.' I wanted one of them to stay 



268 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

with me. He said ' he would, but they would not let him.' After 
they were gone, I thought I heard my husband's voice in complaiut, 
but do not know ; went to the door, and all was still. Next morn- 
ing Mr. Wilkinson was found about one hundred and fifty yards from 
the house, in some dead brush. I believe that one tif Captain Brown's 
sons was in the party who murdered my husband ; I heard a voice 
like his. I do not know Captain Brown himself. The old man who 
seemed to be commander wore soiled clothes and a straw hat, pulled 
down over his face. He spoke quick ; is a tall, narrow-taced, 
elderly man. I would recognize him if I could see him. My hus- 
band was a quiet man, and was not engaged in arresting or disturbing 
anybody." ^ 

There is little reason to doubt that this account is sub- 
stantially correct. The particulars of the action, like the 
deed itself, were bloody, and it is not pleasant to read them 
or relate them ; but they were the opening scenes of war, and 
in requital for bloodier and quite inexcusable deeds which 
had preceded them. Brown long foresaw the deadly conflict 
with the slave-power, which culminated in the Civil War, and 
was eager to begin it, that it might be the sooner over. He 
knew — what few could then believe — that slavery must 
perish in blood ; ^ and, though a peaceful man, he had no 
scruples about shedding blood in so good a cause. The 
American people a few years after engaged in organized 
bloodshed for the attack and defence of slavery, and hundreds 
of thousands of men died in the cause that Brown had killed 
and been killed to maintain. Yet we who praise Grant for 
those military movements^ which caused the bloody death 
of thousands, are so inconsistent as to denounce Brown for 
the death of these five men in Kansas. If Brown was a 
murderer, then Grant and Sherman, and Hancock and the 
other Union generals, are tenfold murderers, — for they 
simply did on a grand scale what he did on a small one. 
War is murder, — in one of its aspects it is deliberate and 
repeated murder ; and yet the patriot warrior who goes 

1 On the contrary, Mr. Grant and hi.s other neighbors speak of him as 
a vicious, muHgnant man, who ill-treated his wife as well as the Free-State 
men. 

"^ " Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins," was a 
favorite text witli Brown. 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 269 

to battle in behalf of his country is not arraigned for murder, 
but honored as a hero. This is so even when by stratagem, 
or midnight assault, he slays hundreds of defenceless peo- 
ple ; for the cause in which he fights is supposed to excuse 
all atrocious deeds. A like excuse must serve for this 
violent but salutary act of John Brown ; ^ and it was in this 
way that he defended it to those who served under him, 
and by whose hands the deed was done. I have talked 
with more than one of these men, and from one of them I 
had this statement : — 

"John Brown did no shooting in my presence, and I think he had 
nothing to do with the killing of any of the five men. At a consul- 
tation on Middle Creek the question came up who would join ; I 

opposed the scheme for a time, and opposed it all the time, 

and had nothing to do with it, except that he went along with us. 
John Brown thought it a matter of duty that there should be a little 
bloodletting on both sides ; he not only approved these executions, 
but planned and carrieii them througli very successfully.^ I reflected 
that these men were influential persons, leading men, and among the 
worst holding office [referring particularly to Wilkinson and George 
Wilson] , and I agreed with Brown it was a matter of duty ; yet I 

1 Charles Robinson, who had as many minds about the Pottawatomie 
affair as his Democratic friends used to have about slavery itself, charac- 
terized it thus in a letter of Dec. 21, 1879, published in the Topeka " Com- 
monwealth " of Jan. 8, 1880 (he has since called John Brown all sorts of 
names, jussit quod sjjiendida bilis) : "It had the effect to strike terror 
into the hearts of all proslavery men, and had its influence in the general 
melee. The proslavery party could take no exceptions to it, as it had 
inaugurated the war, and all the Free-State men can say in its defence is, 
it was an incident of the civil war set on foot by the slave-power. . . . 
But was John Brown at heart a murderer in this butchery ? I think not. 
He worshipped the God of Joshua and David, who ordered all the enemies 
ol his people slaughtered, including non-combatants, women, and children, 
flocks and herds, and ' everything that breathed.' John Brown seemed 
to believe he was the special messenger and servant of this God ; and he 
may have been as sincere as was Abraham when he stretched forth his 
hand to take the knife to slay his own son, or as Joshua when he slaughtered 
all that breathed of his enemies." 

2 The following anecdote is said to rest on the testimony of James 
Christian, a Kansas Democrat. How good authority this may be I can- 
not say, but give it as I find it: "Jerome Glanville was the man who 
was stopping at Dutch Henry's on the night of the massacre, and was 
taken out to be killed, as the others were. On examination he was found 



270 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

was opposed to doing it myself. I saw the inconsistency of tliis, and 
afterwards acted consisteiitly . I had seen Doyle and his boys two or 
three times, and knew them ; they harbored the worst ruffians, and 
I thought them as guilty as if they had done the deeds themselves. 
There was a signal understood, and no firing done in the first opera- 
tion (at Doyle's). The signal was when John Brown was to raise a 
sword; then we were to begin, and there were to be no shots fired. I 
heard but one shot when I was keeping guard over the family of 
Henry Sherman ; it was fired down the creek, half a mile away, and 
I did not know what it meant. Tlie antislavery people in the Terri- 
tory disajiproved of the killing, — Mr. Adiiir among them. He said 
to one of us, ' You are a marked man. You see what a terrible 
calamity you have brought ujjou your friends, and the sooner you go 
away the better.' The reply was, ' I intend to be a marked man.' 
The Border Kuffians had for their vi-atchword * War to the knife, 
and the knife to the hilt,' in the spring before the Pottawatomie 
executions ; after that, they thought the knife might come from 
the other side. Liberty can only live or survive by the shedding 
of blood." 

Townsley declares that when he and others of tlie party 
were unwilling to slay men taken by surprise and unarmed, 
John Brown argued that it was a just and necessary stroke 
of war ; and said, "It is better that ten guilty proslavery 
men should die, than that one Free-State settler should be 
driven out." Townsle}^ adds that he was unwilling to have 
the proslavery men who lived in his neighborhood (Ander- 
son County, near Greeley) attacked by Brown, because some 
of them were good men, and others had wives wlio had been 
kind to his wife. He thought as ill as Brown did of the 
proslavery probate judge Wilson, then supposed to bo at 
Dutch Henry's, and was willing to have the attack made 
there. He was also ready to go to the Doyles, who, " when 
they had drunk a little whiskey, were ready to do what- 

to be only a traveller, but was kept a prisoner until morning and then 
discharged. He informed me personally who were the principal actors in 
tliat damning midnight tragedy, and said that the next morning, while 
the old man raised his hands to Heaven to ask a blessing, they were 
stained with the dried blood of his victims. For being too free in his 
expressions about the matter he was soon after shot in his wagon, between 
Black Jack and the head of Bull Creek, wliile on his way to Kansas 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 271 

ever Dutch Henry told them." According to Townsley, 
Wilkinson was born in the North, but had married a Ten- 
nessee wife, and adopted her view of slavery ; he was the 
postmaster at Shermansville (now called Lane), and was an 
active proslavery leader, like Henry Sherman and George 
Wilson. 1 Townsley and all the witnesses agree that the 
horses of the Shermans were taken and carried with the 
party to the camp of John Brown, Jr., near Ottawa Jones's, 
where they arrived late on the night of the 24th. The next 
morning Oliver Brown showed his brother John a horse 
with his mane and tail sheared, saying, " Did you ever see 
that horse before ? That is Dutch Henry's gray pony." 
This horse was soon after taken to northern Kansas by 
some Free-State men, who gave in exchange for that and 
other horses captured on the Pottawatomie some fast Ken- 
tucky horses, on one of which Owen Brown afterward 
escaped from his pursuers. August Bondi says of the 
executions : — 

" Late in the evening of May 25 I arrived at my claim, in company 
with an old neighbor, Austin, wh(j was afterward named Old Kill 
Devil, from a ritie he had of that name. The family of Benjamin 
(whom we had left when we departed for camp) had disappeared, 
and no cattle were to be seen. This latter was a serious matter, for 
there was nothing left in the shape of [)rovisions. When I told Aus- 
tin that I was willing to stay with him until the last of the Border 
Ruffians had left the country, he encouraged me, and assured me 
that he would find Benjamin's family and protect them at all events. 
Tliis the old man faithfully did. The next evening (May 26) I amved, 
tired and hungry, at the camping-ground of John Brown, a log-cabin 
on the banks of Middle Creek upon the claim of his brother-in-law 
Orson Day. This is one of the houses which, under the name of 
'John Brown's cabin,' has since become famous. The Browns 
built it as a first shelter in the winter of 1855-56, and Day dwelt 

' Mrs. Rising, a New Hampshire woman, who then lived next neighbor 
to the Wilkinsons, told a friend of mine that she knew Mrs. Wilkinson 
very well Viefore and after the killing of her husband ; that Mrs. Wilkin- 
son said she had persuaded him to take the jiroslavery side, but was sorry 
for it, since he was a worse man after it than before, and had treated 
her badly. Mrs. Rising added that he was harsh and cruel to his wife, 
who was a delicate, sickly woman ; and that he was a bad man in other 
respects. 



272 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

in it after March, 1856. It stands west from Osawatoniie on the 
bottoip laud of North Middle Creek. Here also I found my friend 
Wiener,^ from whom I first heard an account of the killing of Doyle 
and his sons, "Wilkinson, and Dutch Heury's brother William. In 
this account Wiener never expressed himself positively as to who 
killed those persons, and I could only guess about it. I was as- 
tonished, but not at all displeased. The men killed had been our 
neighbors, and I was sufficiently acquainted with their characters 
to know that they were of the stock from which afterwards came the 
James brothers, the Youngers, and the rest, who never shrank from 
perpetrating crime if it was done iu the interest of the proslavery 
cause. As to their antecedents, — the Doyles had been ' slave- 
hunters ' before they came to Kansas, and liad brought along two of 
their blood-hounds. Dutch Bill (Sherman), — a German from 
Oldenburg, and a resident of Kansas since 1845, — had amassed con- 
siderable property by robbing cattle droves and emigrant trains. He 
was a giant, six feet four inches high, and for the last weeks before 
his death had made it his pastime (in company with the Doyles) to 
break in the doors of Free-State settlers, frightening and insulting 
the families, or once in a while attacking and ill-treating a man 
whom they encountered alone. Wilkinson was one of the few 
Southerners who were able to read and write, and who prided him- 
self accordingly. He was a member of the Border Ruffian Legisla- 
ture, and a principal leader in all attempts to annoy and extirpate 
the Free-State men. Although he never directly participated in the 
murders and robberies, still it was well understood that he was always 
informed a short time before an invasion of Missourians was to occur; 
and on the very day of his death he had tauntingly said to some Free- 
State men that in a few days the last of them would be either dead 
or.out of the Territory. In this he referred to the coming invasion 
of Cook, at the head of two hundred and fifty armed men from Bates 
County, Mo., who made his appearance about the 27th of May and 
plundered the whole region." 

A startling tale has been tokl, but without good authority, 
concerning the effect produced iu the camp on the Ottawa 

1 Wiener, who took part in the Pottawatomie executions, was residing 
in St. Louis, September, 1855, but then agreed with Benjamin to go to 
Kansas and open a store on Bondi's claim. He invested some .$7,000 in 
goods, and took thera to Kansas just after Bondi had gone back to St. 
Louis, in November. In May, 1856, Wiener went there to buy more 
goods, and Bondi returned to Kansas witli liini. Wiener furnished as a 
gift all the provisions needed by the two rifle companies of sixty-five men, 
when they set out for Lawrence. 



1856. 



THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 273 



by the return of John Brown, — how his son resigned the 
command and became insane, and how general was the exe- 
cration against Brown for his bloody deed. Ko doubt it was 
regretted by most of the company, and it is true that John 
Brown, Jr., resigned his captaincy. But this was for other 
reasons, and the insanity which soon appeared had other 
causes. Jason Brown, who was in his brother's company, 
says : " On the afternoon of IMonday, May 26, a man came 
to us at Liberty Hill (eight miles north of Ottawa Jones's 
house), his horse reeking wdth sweat, and said, ' Five men 
have been killed on the Pottawatomie, horribly cut and 
mangled ; and they say old John Brown did it.' Hearing 
this, I was afraid it was true, and it w^as the most ter- 
rible shock that ever happened to my feelings in my life; 
but brother John took a different view. The next day, 
as we were on the east side of Middle Creek, I asked 
father, ' Did you have any hand in the killing ? ' He 
said, ' I did not, but I stood by and saw it.' I did not 
ask further, for fear I should hear something I did not 
wish to hear. Frederick said, ' I could not feel as if it was 
right ; ' but another of the party said it w^as justifiable as a- 
means of self-defence and the defence of others. What I 
said against it seemed to hurt father very much; but all he 
said was, * God is my judge, — we were justified under the 
circumstances.' " The occasion upon which John Brown, 
Jr.. resigned his command had occurred the day before, — the 
setting free by him of some slaves, who were afterward re- 
turned to tlieir master. On the Sunday following tlie Pot- 
tawatomie executions, but before the tidings reached him, 
he had gone "with Captain Abbott, the rescuer of Branson, 
to see the ruins of Lawrence, and on his way back with a file 
of men, John Brown, Jr., liberated two slaves from their 
Missouri master, near Palmvra, and took them up to his 
camp, while the master fled to Missouri. 

The arrival of these slaves in camp caused a commotion. 
The act of freeing them, though attended hj no violence or 
bloodshed, was freely denounced, and in accordance with 
a vote given by a large majority of the men they were or- 
dered to go back to their master. The driver of the team 
which carried them back, overtaking him on his way to 

. 18 



274 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Westport, received a side-saddle as his reward from the 
grateful slaveholder. Young Brown, feeling insulted by 
this act of his men, refused to command them any longer. 
But in the mean time (so fast did events move that day), 
while the company from Osawatomie was still at Liberty 
Hill, two or three miles south of Palmyra, a company of 
United States dragoons came up, and their leader, a lieuten- 
ant, asked to see the commander of the Free-State force. 
John Brown, Jr., who had not yet resigned, sent word that 
if the lieutenant would come forward without his men he 
(Brown) would meet him. Thereupon, says John Brown, 
Jr., " A solitary horseman from their number came toward 
us, and I rode out and met him. He introduced himself as 
Lieutenant Ives, if I am not mistaken, and told me that he 
had been sent by Colonel Sumner, then in command of the 
Federal troops in Kansas, with an order for all armed bodies 
of men on either side to disperse and return to their homes, 
— adding that Colonel Sumner had undertaken to prevent 
hostile meetings of armed men. The lieutenant hoped we 
would not delay in complying with the order, and further 
said that he was then on his way to disperse the force of 
Georgians, who, he had been informed, were in camp a few 
miles east. He and his men then rode aw^ay in that direc- 
tion, while I returned and related Avhat the lieutenant had 
said. It gave much satisfaction ; for we were all anxious 
to be at home and attend to the planting of our spring 
crops, which had seemed likely to be prevented, in accord- 
ance with the openly avowed plan of our enemies. We 
did not return to our first place of encampment, but at 
once began our homeward march, and reached Ottawa 
Jones's place, where we met my father, about ten o'clock 
that evening." The attack of insanity, which came on 
after this, does not seem to have been causied by the news 
from Pottawatomie, but by the hardships, exposure, and 
anxiety to which John Brown, Jr., had been subjected, and 
which were soon to be redoubled by the harsh treatment 
of his captors 

The tidings of the executions inflamed the Border Ruf- 
fians greatly, as was natural, and gave an excuse for the 
activity of the Federal troops on the side of the slave- 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 275 

holders. Warrants had already been issued for the arrest 
of the Browns as conspirators against the Territorial gov- 
ernment ; and these were now served by civil officers who 
had a strong military force behind them. We saw in the 
last chapter John Brown's explanation of his sons' capture.^ 
I will now give in the words of those sons the events 
accompanying it. John Brown, Jr., says : — 

" We got back to Osawatoinie from our five days' campaign, toward 
evening on the 26th of May. The same night I went to the house of 
Mr. Adair, where I found my wife and son, Jason and his wife and 
their little boy. Jason and I remained there all night ; but next 
morning, learning that a man named Hughes, of Osawatoinie, a pre- 
tended Free-State man, was heading a party to capture us, Mr. 
Adair did not consider it prudent for us to stay lunger, and advised 
us to secrete ourselves in a ravine on his place well tilled with small 
undergrowth. He told us he had received word that the United States 
Marshal had warrants for us and all of our family, — also for Mr. 
Williams, William Partridge, and several others, — and that Hughes 
wanted to distinguish himself by taking us, though pretending to be 
friendly. Jason started at once on foot for Lawrence, saying that 
if there was a warrant out for him he would go there and ^ive 
himself up to a United States officer rather than be taken by a posse 
made up of Missourians and Buford's men. While on his way to 
Lawrence he was captured near Stanton (now called Rantoul) by 
just such a gang as he hoped to avijid, and was taken at once to 
Paola, then called Baptisteville. I took my rifle and horse and went 
into the ravine on Mr. Adair's land, remaining there through that 
day (May 27) and the following night. About four o'cLick p.m. I 
was joined by my brother Owen, who had been informed at Mr. 
Adair's of my whereabouts. He brought with him into the brush 
a valuable running horse, mate of the one I had with me. These 
horses had been taken by Free-State men near the Nebraska line 
and exchanged for horses obtained in the way of reprisals further 
south ; and while on foot a few miles south of Ottawa Jones's place, 
May 26, I had been offered one of these to ride the remaining distance 
to Osawatomie. Owen's horse was wet with sweat ; and he told me 
of the narrow escape he had just had from a number of armed pro- 
slavery men who had their headquarters at Tooley's, — a house at the 
foot of the liill, about a mile and a half west of Mr. Adair's. Their 
guards, seeing him in the road coming down the hill, gave a signal, 

1 See Brown's Second Campaign in Kansas, p. 237. 



276 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

and at once the whole gang were in hot chase. The supeiior tleet- 
ness of the horse Owen rode alone saved him. He exchanged horses 
with me, and that night forded the Marais des Cygucs, and going by 
Stanton (or Staudiford, as it was sometimes called), recrossed the 
river to father's camp about a mile north of the house of Mr. Day. 
Until Owen told me tliat night, 1 did nut kuow where father could be 
found. The next morning early I went to Mr. Adair's house; and 
was there but a few moments when there suddenly rode up a number 
of United States cavalry, whom I was quite willing to see ; but while 
in conversation with them a large number of mounted Missouriaus 
came up also, and with them the United States Marshal, whom I 
knew, but did not wish to see. He read to me a warrant for my 
arrest, which charged me witli treason against the United States. 
Resistance was of course out of the question. It was then I dis- 
covered that the soldiers were there simply as a j^osse to aid the 
marshal ; and I went along in a wagon accompanied by all of 
these as far as where Captain Wood of the cavalry had his camp, 
near Osawatomie, when the soldiers returned to their camp, and 
the others went on with me to Paola. There I found Jason and 
several others of our men, including Mr. Williams, Mr. Partridge, 
and, I think, Mr. Benjamin." 

Such were the adventures of one brother, before he joined 
the other in captivity at Baptisteville,^ now called Paola. 
Jason's adventures were even more romantic. He had 
parted from his father, May 26, early in the morning, after 
the conversation already quoted, and had returned with a 
heavy heart to Osawatomie, where his family were. His 
brother John was suffering from his sleepless anxieties, al- 
though he afterward became much worse ; ' and the conduct 

1 This is a town of some importance between Osawatomie and the 
Missouri border, and about ten miles northeast of Mr. Adair's house. 
Its name in 1856 (pronounced colloquially " Batteesville") was given 
in honor of an Indian, — Buptiste Peoria, — from whose last name, by 
corruption, the present title of the town seems to be derived. It was a' 
proslavery settlement at that time, while Osawatomie was celebrated for 
its antislavery character. 

2 Mr. Adair told me, when I visited him in 1882, among his orchards 
and vines at Osawatomie, that John Brown, Jr., was "beside himself" 
when he came to the Adair place Monday night, jMay26, with Jason ; that 
he had been without sleep several nights, and was perhaps disturbed also 
by the killing of the Doyles, etc. Thinking him in such a condition as 
made it unsafe to have him, fully armed, in the house, some of his friends, 



185G.J THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 277 

of liis father at Pottawatomie weighed on Jason's compas- 
sionate mind. His uncle Adair could give them no protec- 
tion, and was endangered himself by their presence. Jason 
therefore set forth alone and on foot across the prairie 
north of the Marais des Cygnes, to go back to the friendly 
house of Ottawa Jones, the Christian Indian, and thence to 
Lawrence, where he meant to give himself up to " Uncle 
Sam's " troops, and not to the Border Euffians. He had 
not gone far when he saw in the distance towards Paola a 
dozen horsemen, whom he took to be Missourians, moving 
southwest toward the Browns' settlement on Middle Creek, 
while he was travelling northwest from Osawatomie. Their 
lines of travel soon intersected, and Jason, going up to one 
of the horsemen, inquired the way to Ottawa Jones's. The 
leader of the party with an oath exclaimed : " You are one 
of the men we 're hunting for ; " and levelled his rifle at 
him. Jason stood still, and the men began to question him 
rapidly. " What is your name ? " '' Jason Brown." — " The 
son of old John Brown ? " " Yes." — " Are you armed ? " 
" Yes, with a revolver." — '' Give it up. Have you any 
money ? " He produced two or three dollars, which he 
happened to have, and gave that up. " Xow step in front 
of the horses." Upon this, he knew they meant to shoot 
hiln ; so he stepped backward, facing them, opened his 
bosom, and said: "I am an Abolitionist; I believe that 
slavery is wrong, and that Kansas ought to be a free State. 
I never knowingly harmed any man in the world. If you 
want to take m}' blood for believing in the doctrines of the 
Declaration of Independence, do it now." When he said 
this with emphasis,^ three or four of the Missourians laid 
their rifles across their saddles, but the rest kept aiming at 
him. The leader, who proved to be Martin White, a pro- 
slavery preacher (the same Avho afterward shot Frederick 
Brown), said, " Well, we won't shoot you now, but make a 

or those who professed to be such, tried to have him give up his arms, 
and be himself given wp to the United States troops and put under their 
protection. Owen Bi'own, who spent some hours with John the night be- 
fore his arrest, denies this alleged insanity at that time. 

1 " I could talk then," said the modest man, telling me the story ; " I 
can't talk now." 



278 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1836. 

prisoner of you ; " and they took him Lack toward Paola. 
On the way they halted, and he, overcome with fatigue, sat 
down on the ground and fell asleep. He was waked by 
men who seemed to be threatening his life again ; but he 
began to talk to them, denouncing slavery and declaring 
himself an Abolitionist, with the reasons why. One or 
two of the company, who seemed more intelligent than 
the rest, listened to him ; and when they reached Paola, 
these men — Judge Cato and Judge Jacobs, as they were 
called — caused their prisoner to be put in a good bed, and 
returned his money and revolver to him. He met his 
brother John the next day ; and there soon happened to 
them another adventure, which is related by the elder 
brother, and is a good example of the fear inspired by 
John Brown : — 

" The day after we were taken to Paola, a proslavery man fi-om near 
Stanton brought in and gave to the Missourians and Buford's men 
wlio held our Uttle company as prisoners a scrap of paper containing 
only these words : ' I am aware that you hold my two sons, John 
and Jason, prisoners. — John Brown.' The bearer of the paper said 
he brought it under the assurance that his own life depended on its 
delivery. Brother Jason and I occupied a room which contained a 
bed and a small lamp-stand or table. Two others also occupied the 
room as guards. The early part of the night of this day had been 
spent by our guards at card-playing at the little table. Jason, with- 
out removing his clothes, had lain down on the front side of the bed, 
and was in deep sleep. Occupying in like manner the side of the 
bed next the wall, at about midnight, as near as I can judge, T was 
awakened by the sudden opening of the outside door and the rushing 
in of a number of men with drawn bowie-knives. Seizing the can- 
dle, and saying, ' Which are they ? ' they crowded around our bed 
with uplifted knives. Believing that our time had come, and wish- 
ing to save Jason, still asleep, from prcdonged suffering, I opened 
the bosom of his shirt, and pointing to the region of his heart, said, 
* Strike here ! ' At this moment the sudden and loud barking of 
dogs outside and a hurrying f)f steps on the porch caused a most 
lively stampede of our assailants within, and this attack was ended 
without a blow. From the hour at Pottawatomie, father had 
become to slaveholders and their allies in Kansas an omnipresent 
dread, filling them with forebodings of evil by day and the spec- 
tre of their imaginings at night. Owing to that fear, our lives 
were saved.' 



1856.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 279 

The next day they were placed in custody of Captain 
Walker, of the United States cavalry, a Southerner, who 
himself tied John's arms back in such a manner as to pro- 
duce the most intense suffering, with one end of a long rope, 
of Avhich he gave the other end to a sergeant ; the captive 
was then placed a little in advance of the column headed by 
Captain Walker, and to avoid being trampled by the horses 
which had been ordered to trot, he was driven at this pace 
in the hot sun to Osawatomie, a distance of nine miles. 
The rope had been tied so tight as to stop circulation. In- 
stead of loosening it at camp, a mile south of Osawatomie, 
no change was made in it through that day, all the follow- 
ing night, nor until about noon the next day. By that time 
the poor man's arms and hands had swollen to nearly double 
their size, and turned black as if mortitied. On removing 
the rope, a ring of the skin came off ; and the scar of this, 
which he calls " slavery's bracelet," is still visible on Mr. 
Brown's arms. Such treatment, of course, increased his 
insanity, throwing him into a kind of fever, and for some 
time his recovery was doubtful. During this period he was 
sometimes chained with a common trace-chain, — which his 
father afterwai'd obtained, and occasionally exhibited in 
his journeys through the aSTorth, to show his hearers what 
slavery could do for white men in Kansas. 

John Brown, meanwhile, was pursuing the course de- 
scribed by him in the long letter of June, 1856, printed in 
the last chapter. His fame was wonderfully increased by 
the bloody deed of Pottawatomie, which rumor instantly 
ascribed to him, and which was not doubted to be his act at 
the time, in Kansas or Missouri. He had counted, most 
likely, on this very result, and profited in his campaign by 
the terror and rage it inspired. The two or three weeks 
that intervened between the attack on Lawrence and the 
successful skirmishes of Brown in June, were the critical 
period of the contest for the "Free-State men. Had he not 
held up the standard then, and checked the insolence of the 
slaveholders, Kansas would have been given up to them, 
and the immigration of Korthern men prevented. This 
opinion has been expressed to me by many of the Kansas 



280 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

people ; while others, who do not go so far, admit that 
Brown's course was very useful to the cause. Colonel 
Walker, of Lawrence, in quoting to me Brown's saying in 
August, 1882, — " the Pottawatomie execution was a just 
act, and did good," — added, "I must say he told the truth. 
It did a great deal of good by terrifying the Missourians. I 
heard Governor Robinson say this himself in his speech at 
Osawatomie in 1877 ; he said he rejoiced in it then, though 
it put his own life in danger, — for he [Eobinson] was a 
prisoner at Lecomptou, when Brown killed the men at 
Pottawatomie." 

This also was the deliberate and often-expressed opinion 
of Judge Hanway, who lived near the scene of the execu- 
tions, and who knew all the circumstances. This worthy 
man published the following statement in December, 1879, 
in addition to what I have already quoted : — 

" T was informed by one of the party of eiglit who left our camp ou 
Ottawa Creek, May 22, 185G, to visit the Pottawatotiiie, what their 
object and purposes were. I protested, and begged them to desist. 
Of course my plea availed nothing. After the dreadful affair had 
taken place, and after a full investigation of the whole matter, I, like 
many others, modified my opinion. Good men and kind-hearted 
women in 1856 differed in regard to this affair in which John Brown 
and his party were the leading actors. John Brown justified it, and 
thought it a necessity ; others differed from him then, as they do 
now. I have had an excellent opportunity to investigate the matter, 
and like others of the early settlers was finally forced to the conclu- 
sion that the Pottawatomie ' massacre,' as it is called, prevented the 
ruffian hordes from carrying out their programme of expelling the 
Free-State men from this portion of the Territory of Kansas. It 
was this view of the case which reconciled the minds of the settlers 
on the Pottawatomie. They would whisper one to the other : ' It 
was fortunate for us ; for God only knows what our fate and condition 
would have been, if old John Brown had not driven terror and con- 
sternation into the ranks of the proslavery party.'" 

Upon this result, as well as upon the ground first named 
in this chapter, — that Brown believed himself to be, and 
in fact was, divinely inspired to make a slavish peace in 
Kansas impossible, — must rest his justification for the 
bloody act I have described. Men will continue to doubt 



»J 



1359.] THE POTTAWATOMIE EXECUTIONS. 281 

whether his justification is ample ; but such he held it to 
be, and. was willing to rest his cause with God, and with pos- 
terity. A few men who now denounce him for this deed long 
upheld it, and have profited by its good consequences, — 
among them Charles Robinson, whose emphatic approval 
in 1878 has already been cited.^ With the excuses of such 
men for their change of tone, history has nothing to do. 
During the period when they must have best known the 
circumstances attending Brown's act, — its provocations, 
its timeliness, and its results, — they publicly excused it, 
and honored him. Their voice in accusation and mali- 
cious interpretation of Brown will now be judged at its 
true value. Those of us who long refused to believe that 
Brown participated in these executions would not perhaps 

1 At a public meeting held in Lawrence, Dec. 19, 1859 (according to 
the newspaper report.s at the time), the citizens jjassed resohitions concern- 
ing the Pottawatomie execntion.s, declaring " that according to the ordinary 
rules of war said transaction was not unjustifiable, but that it was per- 
formed from the sad necessitj' which existed at that time to defend the 
lives and liberties of the settlers in that region." This resolution was 
supported by Charles Robinson, who said that he had always believed 
that John Brown was connected with that movement. Indeed, he believed 
Brown had told him so, or to that effect ; and when he first heard of the 
massacre, he thought it was about right. A war of extermination was in 
prospect, and it was as well for Free-State men to kill proslavery men, as 
for proslavery men to kill Free-State men. All he wanted to know was 
that these men were put out of the world decently, not hacked and cut to 
pieces, as was R. P. Brown. G. W. Brown believed the murder of those 
men on Pottawatomie Creek was not justifiable ; but he (Rol)inson) thought 
it was. Mr. Adair, a nephew of John Brown, remarking that he had 
heard his uncle say he was present and approved of the deed, but that he 
did not raise a finger himself to injure the men, — that his .skirts were clear 
of blood, — Robinson said it made no difference whether he raised his hand 
or otherwise. John Brown was present, aiding and advising ; he did not 
attempt to stop the bloodshed, and is of course responsible, though justi- 
fiable according to Robinson's understanding of the matter. He added 
that while the war in Kansas continued, he was pleased with the co-oper- 
ation of John Brown ; but after peace was restored, and the offices passed 
into Free-State hands, he thought the sheriffs of the several counties should 
have been called upon to preserve the peace. With them the responsibility 
should have rested, not with the unauthorized individuals, — old John 
Brown or anybody else ; and any interference of Brown subsequent to 
the troubles in 1856 he repudiated. 



282 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. 



[1856. 



have honored or trusted him less had we known the whole 
truth. I for one should not ; though I should have deeply 
regretted the necessity for such deeds of dark and provi- 
dential justice. 

" Not yet the wise of heart would cease 
To hold his hope through shame and guilt, 
And, with his hand against the hilt, 
Would pace the troubled land like Peace ; 
WouM love the gleams ol' good that broke 
From either side, nor veil his eyes ; 
A7id if sovie dreadful need should rise. 
Would strike, and firmly, and oou stroke." 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 283 



CHAPTER X. 

THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 

'"PHE events already chronicled are but a small part of 
•^ those which took place in Kansas while John Brown 
maintained his connection with the friends of freedom there. 
It was more than three years from his first arrival at Osa- 
watomie before he finally withdrew (late in January, 1859) 
from the Territory, whose admission as a free State was 
then secure, although the date was delayed. But he spent 
less than half those three years in Kansas. His first sum- 
mer there, in 1856, was the most eventful portion of that 
period ; and this has been in part described. But much 
remains to be told, although the incidents of that sum- 
mer, which then seemed so momentous, have shrunk almost 
into insignificance in comparison with the campaigns of 
the Civil Way that so soon followed. What we used to 
call "battles" in Kansas, if the whole sum of them were 
thrown together, would hardly equal in their numbers or 
tangible results a single- heavy skirmish along the front 
of Grant's army. The total loss of life on both sides 
during 1856, by the casualties of war, did not exceed a 
hundred men, and the property destroyed was hardly so 
much as a hundred thousand dollars. Yet though this com- 
putation makes the struggle appear trivial, it was not so 
in fact ; while in the qualities of mind which it developed 
it became all-important. In Kansas, first of all, the patient 
and too submissive citizen of the North learned to stand 
firm against Southern arrogance and assumption ; for that 
scantily settled prairie exhibited more courage to the square 
mile than the most populous Northern States had before 
displayed. John Brown alone was worth all the trouble 
that Kansas gave the nation, and his significance atones for 
the littleness of the affair, even as we now view it. 



284 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Yet, in truth, the creation of a free State, colonized by 
the best yeomanry of the North, on the western frontier of 
the slaveholding South, was in itself a great event ; and the 
possibility of success in the enterprise aroused an interest 
throughout the country that nothing else had excited. The 
attempt was made, too, on the eve of one of our periodic 
political contests, — the election of President ; and this 
issue became inevitably connected with the canvass. It was 
the fear of losing the presidential vote of Pennsylvania for 
James Buchanan in 1856 that inspired the recall of the 
worst Territorial governors of Kansas, — Shannon and Wood- 
son, — and the appointment, just before the decisive October 
election, of that upright Pennsylvania Democrat Governor 
Geary. His private instructions were said to be, "Quiet 
the Territory at any cost ; for if the warfare continues in 
Kansas, Pennsylvania will vote for Fremont." This, as the 
other States then^ stood, would have defeated Buchanan. 
Just before Geary's appointment, Jefferson Davis (of all 
men in the world), who was then Secretary of War, had 
directed General Persifor Smith, who commanded the United 
States forces at Leavenworth, to put down the " open rebel- 
lion " of the freemen of Kansas.^ But more patriotic and 
peaceful counsels prevailed ; Governor GeaiT quieted the 
Territory, and Buchanan was elected President. 

The occasion for this manifesto from Jefferson Davis was 
the lively campaign, offensive as well as defensive, which had 
been carried on by John Brown, General Lane, Major Abbott, 
Captain Walker, and others, during the three months be- 
tween the Pottawatomie executions and the burning of Osa- 
watomie at the end of August. Having already published 

1 Davis wrote to General Smith : "The President has rlireeted me to 
say to you that you are authorized from time to time to make requisitions 
njion the Governor [of Kans;is] for sueh militia force as yon may reijuire to 
enable you to suppress the insurrection against the f:fovernment of tlie Ter- 
ritory of Kansas. Should you not be able to derive from the n)ililnry of 
Kansas an adequate force for the purjmse, you will derive such additional 
number of militia as may be neeessi»ry from the States of Illinois and 
Kentucky. . . . The position of the insurgents is that of ojxn rcheUioyi 
against the laws and constitutional anthoritics, with such manifestation of 
purpose to sjiread devastation over the land as no longer justifies further 
hesitation or indulgence." 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 285 

John Brown's report to his family of the fight at Black 
Jack, near Palmyra, early in June, I will next quote from 
other authorities, and finally from Brown himself, some his- 
torical notes of this disturbed summer. One of his soldiers, 
Luke F. Parsons, has within a few years made this statement 
respecting his own conduct in the Kansas feud : — 

RECOLLECTIONS OF L. F. PARSOXS. 

" At daylight on the morning of the 3d of June, 1856, Major Hoyt 
and I galloped to Black Jack, where I tendered my services to 
Captain Brown, and was immediately put on guard; and I was the 
only post sentinel who challenged Colonel Sumner when he came to 
release our prisoners. Again, sometime in the latter part of August 
I Hiet John Brown hi Lawrence ; he told me he came to get help to 
defend Osawatomie. I told him to try the ' Stubs ' (which was a 
Lawrence Sharpe's rifle company to which I belonged). He replied 
that he had, but they would not leave Lawrence. I told him I 
wt)uld get my rifle and go with him. He said he would surely show 
me how lo fight, if the rascals would give him a chance. When I 
went for my gun Lieutenant Cutler asked what I was going to do. 
I told him, and he said, ' The guns belong to the company, and shall 
not be taken away.' Brown borrowed a Sharpe's rifle of Captain 
Harvey for me, and I went with him to his camp near Osawatomie. 

"Aug. 30, 18.56, we were camped a half-mile east of that town, 
at Mr. Crane's place. While we were cooking breakfast, before 
sunrise, a man dashed into camp, saying ihe Border Ruffiaus were 
coming from the west, and had just killed Fred Brown and David 
Garrison near Mr. Adair's. Brown started right off, and said, ' Men, 
coDie on! ' He did not say rjo. I started with Iiim, and it was some 
minutes before any overtook us. While we were hurrying on by 
ourselves, Brown said, 'Parsons, were you ever under firef ' I re- 
plied, * No; but I will obey orders. Tell me what you want me to 
d(i.' He said, ' Take more care to end life well than to live long.' 

"When we reached the bhickhouse in the village he motioned to 
several to go in, myself with the rest. He then said to me, ' Hold 
your position as long as possible, and hurt them all you can ; while 
we will go into the timber and annoy them from that side.' I fast- 
ened the door with a large bar, and thought all secure. Soon firing 
conmienced up the Marais des Cyenes, where Brown had gone. 
There was a second floor in the blockhouse, and part of the boys had 
gone up there. While we all selected our port-hole. Brown had drawn 
their attention, so that we were not molested. After some twenty 



286 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

minutes or so, some one on the second floor called out : * They have 
cannon, and will blow us all to pieces in here. I am going to get 
out of this.' I said : ' No, you must stay.' Old man Austin said, 
* Stay here, and let them blow us to hell and back again ! ' I went 
upstairs to get a better view of the enemy, and before I knew it the 
door was opened and most of the men gone. I don't know even 
where they went. Austin and I, and I think two others, — four in 
all, — then went up the Marais des Cygnes River, in tlie timber, aud 
joined Brown at the fight, on his left. Cline had gone before this. 
We had not been there long when we all fell back across the river. 
Partridge was shot while in the river. 

" At this place the water was deep, and I said to Austin, * I cannot 
swim witli my gun,' which I soon threw into the river. So we both 
ran down the river. The bank was high, so we were most of the 
time out of sight. I ran too fast for the old man [Austin], and 
he called to me not to leave him. As we approached the old saw- 
mill the bank became lower, and we were seen by the ruffians, 
three of whom were after us. I told Austin that as I could see the 
bottom, I would cross. He replied, 'I won't run another inch;' 
and dropped down behind a large log. I waded through ; but the 
opposite bank was steep and high ; and as I was clinging to brush 
and scrambling up, I heard the words ' Halt ! halt I halt ! ' in rapid 
succession, and immediately several guns were fired, aud the dirt lorn 
up by my side. I was on the bank in a twinkle, and returned their 
salute as well as I could. Two were [uitting spurs to tlieir iiorses the 
best they could. One horse bore an euipty saddle, and one man was 
kicking his last kick; and Austin jumped up and came over to me. 
As we went up the river he told me tliat they did not see him, but 
passed rather in front of him, and all shot at me ; while he shot one 
in the back just at the very moment they shot at me. In an hour or 
so after this we got together at a h)g-liouse on the north side of the 
river. Dr. Updegraff w;\s then in the house, shot in the thigh. 
Brown -was with him. But before we got together the smoke of the 
bumiug town was seen. They burned twenty-nine houses. 

" The next day we moved to the south side, to a ]\Ir. Hauser's. 
We commenced to fell timber round a place selected by Brown as pos- 
sessing natural advantages for defence. We felled the tree-tops out, 
and trimmed them with sharp points. Most of the men became sick 
with the ague, and work was suspended. Soon after this, I too was 
taken with fever, and Brown hauled me to Lawrence. I was very 
sick. Brown asked me if he should take me to the hospital. I told 
him that I would rather go to Mrs. Killum's (a boarding-house 
where I had previously lodged), if she would take care of me. He 
went and found her, and return«>d saying, 'Mrs. Killum says, 



1856] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 287 

" Bring him here : I would do as much for Luke Parsons as for uiy 
own son." ' Under her care I recovered so' that I was again under 
Brown's command. I shouldered my gun and marched out to meet 
the twenty-eight hundred men who cauie up from Missouri in 
Septemher. If I remember aright, in about a year after this I went 
with John E. Cook to Tabor, Iowa, where I next saw Brown, and 
from Tabor went on to Spriugdale. 

"■ I also take pride in saying that I was under arms in Topeka, on 
July 4, 1856, when Colonel Sumner dispersed the Legislature. I 
was with Captain Walker in the capture of Colonel Titus, near 
Lecompton. I claim to be the man who shot Colonel Titus. 

"I was near our Captain Shombre when he was struck by the 
fatal ball. I received a very sore but slight wound there. It was on 
my shin, made by a very small ball or a buclv-shot. 

'' Kansas was admitted into the Union in 1861, with every inch free 
soil, and still the object for which Brown fought was not entirely 
accomplished. I enlisted in the Union army, and fought for nearly 
four years, until that object icas fulU/ attained, and there was 
nowhere to be found a ' slave to clank his chains by the graves of 
Monticello or the shades of Mt. Vernon.' " 

The name of this soldier of Brown's company appears in 
the " Articles of Enlistment and By-Laws of the Kansas 
Regulars, made and established by the commander, A. d. 
1856, in whose handwriting it is," — as Brown described the 
book to me when he gave me a copy in April, 1857. Here 
are its contents, given, as to spelling and punctuation, in 
exact accordance with the original : — 

Kansas Territory, a. d. 1856. 

1. The Covenant. 

We whose names are found on these and the next following pages 
do hereby enhst ourselves to serve in the Free-State cause under 
John Brown as Commander : during the full period of time affixed 
to our names respectively and we severally pledge our word and our 
sacred honor tt) said Commander ; and to each other, tliat during the 
time for which we have enlisted we will fiiitlifnlly and punctually 
perform our duty (in such capacity or place as may be assigned to us 
by a majority of all the votes of those associated with us : or of 
the companies to which \xg may belong as the case may be) as a 
regular volunteer force for the maintainance of the rights & liberties 
of the Free- State Citizens of Kansas : and we further agree ; that as 



288 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

iudividuals we will coufonn to the b>/ Laws of this Organization & 
that tve icill insist ou their regular & pimctual enforcement as a first 
& last duly : & in short that we will observe & maintain a strict & 
thorough Military discipline at all times untill ouv term of service 
expires. 

Names, date of enlistment^ and term of sei'vice on next Pages. 
Term of service omitted for want of room {princiiiallij for the 
War). 

2. Natnes and date of enlistment. 

Aug. 22.^ Wm. Patridge (imprisoned), John Salathiel, S. Z. 
Brown, John Goodell, L. F. Parsons, N. B. Phelps, Wra. B. 
Harris. 

Aug. 23. Jason Brown (son of commander; imprisoned). 

Aug. 24. J. Benjamin (imprisoned). 

Aug. 25. Cyrus Taton, R. Reynolds (imprisoned), Noah Frazee 
(1st Lieut.), Wni. Miller, John P. Glenn, Wm. Quick, M. D. Liuie, 
Amos Alderman, August Bondie, Charles Kaiser (murdered Aug. 
30), Freeman Austin (aged 57 years), Samuel Heresou, John W. 
Troy, Jas. H. Hcdmes (Capt.). 

Aug. 26. Geo. Patridge (killed Aug. 30), Wm. A. Sears. 

Aug. 27. S. H. Wright. 

Aug. 29. B. Darrach (Surgeon), Saml. Farrar. 

Sept. 8, Timothy Kelly, Jas. Andrews. 

Sept. 9. W. H. Leman, Charles Oliver, D. H. Hurd. 

Sept. 15. Wm. F. Haniel. 

Sept. 16. Saml. Geer (Commissary). 

3. Bylaws of the Free- State regular Volunteers of Kansas enlisted 
undo' John Broivn. 

Art. T. Those who agree to he governed by the following articles 
& whose names are appended will be known as the Kansas 
Regulars. 

Alt. IL Every officer connected with organization (except the 
Commander already named) shall be elected by a majority of the 
members if above a Captain ; & if a Captain ; or under a Captain, 
by a majority of the company to which they belong. 

Art. HL All vacancies shall be filled by vote of the majority of 
members or companies as the case may be, & all members shall be 
alike eliiiible to the highest office. 

Art. IV. All trials for misconduct of Officers ; or privates ; shall 
be by a jury tif Twelve; chosen by a majority of Compauy, or 

1 1856. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 289 

conipauies as the case may be. Each Company shall try its own 
members. 

Art. V. All valuable property taken by honorable warfare from 
the enemy, shall be held as the property of the whole company, or 
companies, as the case may be : equally, without distinction ; to be 
used fur the common benefit or be placed in the hands of responsible 
agents for sale : the proceeds to be divided as nearly equally amongst 
the cfimpany : or companies capturing it as may be : except that no 
person shall be entitled to any dividend fi-om property taken before 
he entered the service ; and any person guilty of desertion, or 
convicted of gross violation of his obligations to those with whom 
he should act, whether officer or private : shall forfeit his interest in 
all dividends made after such misconduct has occurred. 

Art. VI. All property captured shall be delivered to the receiver 
of the force, or company as the case may be ; whose duty it shall be 
to make a full inventory of the same (assisted by such person, or 
persons as may be chosen for that purpose), a coppy of which shall 
be made into the Books of this organization; & held subject to 
examination by any niember, on all suitable occasions. 

Art. VII. The receiver shall give his receipts in a Book for that 
purpcise for all moneys & other property of the regulars placed in his 
hands ; keep an inventory of the same & make copy as provided in 
Article VI. 

Art. VIII. Captured articles when used for the benefit of the 
members : shall be receipted for by the Commissary, the same as 
moneyes placed in his hands. The receiver to hold said receipts. 

Art. IX. A disorderly retreat shall not be suffered at any time & 
every Officer & private is by this article fully empowered to prevent 
the same by force if need be, & any attempt at leaving the ground 
daring a fight is hereby declared disorderly unless the consent or di- 
rection of the officer then in command have authorized the same. 

Art. X. A disorderly attack or charge ; shall not be sulfered at 
any time. 

Art. XI. When in camp a thorough watch both regular and 
Piquet shall be maintained both by day, & by Night : and visitors 
shall not be suffered to pass or repass without leave from the 
Captain of the guard and under common or ordinary circumstances it 
is expected that the Officers will cheerfully share this service with 
the privates for examples sake. 

Art. XII. Keeping up Fires or lights after dark ; or firing of Guns, 
Pistols or Caps shall not be allowed, except Fires and lights when 
unavoidable. 

Art. XIII. When in Camp neither Officers shall be allowed to 
leave without consent of the Officer then in command. 

19 



290 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Art. XIV. All uncivil ungentlemanly profane, vulgar talk or 
conversation shall be discouuteuanced. 

Art. XV. All acts of petty tlieft needless waste of the property of 
the members or of Citizens is hereby declared disorderly : together 
with all uncivil, or unkind treatment of Citizens or of prisoners. 

Art. XVI. In all cases of capturing property, a sufficient number 
of men shall be detailed to take charge of the same ; all others shall 
keep in their position. 

Art. XVII. It shall at all times be the duty of the quarter 
Master to select ground for encampment subject however to felie 
approbation of the commanding officer. 

Art. XVIIl. The Commissary shall give his receipts in a Book for 
that purpose f(M' all moneys provisions, and stores ^sut into his hands. 

Art. XIX. The Officers of companies shall see that the arms of 
the same are in constant good order and a neglect of this duty shall 
be deemed disorderly. 

Art. XX. No person after having first surrendered himself a 
prisoner shall be ^juf to death : or subjected to corporeal p)unishment, 
without first having had the benefit of an impartial trial. 

Art. XXI. A Waggon Master and an Assistant shall be chosen 
for each company whose duty it shall be to take a general care and 
oversight of the teams, waggons, harness and all other articles or 
property pertaining thereto: and who shall both be exempt from 
serving on guard. 

Art. XXII. The ordinary use or introduction into the camp of 
any intoxicating liquor, as a beverage: is hereby declared disorderly. 

Art. XXIII. A Majority of Two Thirds of all the Members may 
at any time alter or amend the foregoing articles. 

4. List of Volunteers either engaged or guarding Horses during the 
fight of Black Jack or Palmgra, June 2, iS'i6. 

1. Saml. T. Shore (Captain). 2. Silas More. 3. David Hen- 
dricks (Horse Guard). 4. Hiram McAllister. 5. Mr. Parmely 
(wounded). 6. Silvester Harris. 7. 0. A. Carpenter (wounded). 
8. Augustus Shore. 9. Mr. Townsley (of Pottawatomie). 10. 
Win. B. Hayden. 11. Jolin Mewhinney. 12. Montgomery Shore. 
13. Elkana Timmons. 14. T. Weiner. 15. August Bondy. 16. 
Hugh Mewhinney. 17. Charles Kaiser. 18. Elizur Hill. 19. 
William David. 20. B. L. Cochran. 21. Henry Thomi)son 
(wounded). 22. Elias Basinger. 23. Owen Brown. 24. Fredk. 
Brown (horse guard ; murdered Aug. 30). 25. Salmon Brown. 
2fi. Oliver Brown. 27. This blank may be filled by Capt. Shore 
as he mav liave the name. John Buown. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 291 

5. List of names of the wounded in the Battle of Black Jack (or 
Palmyra') and also of the Eight who held out to receive the 
surrender of Capt. Fate and Twenty -1 wo men on that occasion. 
June 2, 185G. 

1. Mr. Parmely wounded in Nose, & Ann obliged to leave. 2. 
Henry Thompson dangerously wounded but fought for nearly one 
Hour afterward. 3. 0. A. Carpenter Badly wounded and obliged to 
leave. 4. Charles Kaiser, murdered Aug. 30. 5. Elizur Hill. 

6. Wm. David. 7. Hugh Mewliiuuey (17 yrs. old). 8. B. L. 
Cochran. 9. Owen Brown, 10. Salmon Brown. Seriously 
wounded (soon after by accident). 11. Oliver Brown — 17 years 
old. 

In the battle of Osawatomie Capt. (or Dr.) Updegraph ; and 
Two others whose names I have lost were severely {one of them 
shockingly) wounded before the fight began Aug. 30, 1856. 

John Brown. 

In these lists appear a few of the men who afterward 
fought under Captain Brown at Harper's Ferry ; but only a 
few, for most of them seem to have been settlers in Kansas 
who would fight to protect themselves, but not to attack 
slavery at a distance. The dates given in the list, when 
this man or that was "murdered,'* denote the day on which 
Brown's most famous engagement — that of Osawatomie, 
Aug. 30, 1856 — was fought. The fight at Black Jack, or 
Palmyra, on the 2d of June, 1856, was more remarkable, 
though the w^hole force engaged on both sides was less than 
eighty. I have quoted Brown's report of it, but will here 
describe it more fully. 

Brown had taken to the prairie for guerilla warfare 
against the Missourians and other Southern invaders of 
Kansas, after the Pottawatomie executions. Among their 
leaders -^was Captain Pate, a Virginian. Brown, hearing of 
the capture of his sons, pursued Pate, and came up with 
him on Monday, the 2d of June, at his camp on the Black 
Jack Creek (so called from the black oak growing on its 
banks), within the present limits of Palmyra. 

In the interval between the Pottawatomie executions and 
the fight at Black Jack, during which the sons of John 
Brown were captured as has been re'lated, many im])ortant 
events occurred ; but I will confine my narrative chiefly to 



292 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

those ill which the Brown family were directly concerned. 
Several witnesses are still alive who took part in them ; but 
my chief reliance will be (besides the letters of John Brown) 
the detailed statements made by Owen Brown and by 
August Bondi (the German citizen of Kansas already men- 
tioned), both of whom were in camp, or rather in hiding, 
with John Brown while the Border Buftians and the United 
States dragoons were scouring the country between Law- 
rence and Osawatomie to find the perpetrators of the bloody 
deed of May 24. Bondi has published a minute report, in 
which he says that he rode, with nine others, on the morn- 
ing of May 26, to the claim of John Brown, Jr., qii " Vine 
Branch, a mile and a half from Middle Creek Bottom," 
where they halted, and were joined in the afternoon by 
0. A. Carpenter, a Fi'ee-State man then living on Ottawa 
Creek, not far from Prairie City, who came to request John 
Brown in the name of the settlers there that he would come 
and protect them against the Missourians. This little vil- 
lage of Prairie City (described by Redpath as "a munici- 
pality consisting of two log-cabins and a well ") is a part 
of the township of Palni3'ra, and now figures as a railroad 
station on the route from Lawrence to the Indian Territory 
and Texas. It has been eclipsed by Baldwin City in the 
same township, which is the nearest station (on the South- 
ern Kansas Railway) to the field of Black Jack. Baldwin 
City had three hundred and twenty-five inhabitants in 1880 ; 
while Prairie City has disappeared from separate enumera- 
tion, and contributes its few citizens to the aggregate popu- 
lation of Palmyra township, — about twenty -five hundred. 
These places are in the southeastern corner of Douglas 
County, of which Lawrence is the chief town, and so near 
the Shawnee Mission and the INEissouri border that they 
Avere peculiarly exposed to raids by the Ruffians. Moreover 
they lay near the road from Lawrence to OsaAvatomie (some 
forty miles apart), and the protection of the Free-State men 
there was important in keeping up communications between 
central and southern Kansas, as those terms were then used. 
South of Palmyra, in^Miami County, was the armed colony 
of Buford's men, and eastward were the "Missouri counties 
of Cass and Jackson. Carpenter's mission was, then, to 



1856.] THE IvANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 293 

secure Brown's small band as a protection for the southern 
part of Douglas County, checking the thieving raids which 
were then so frequent, and, if necessary, making reprisals. 
Brown accepted the duty, and at dusk on the 26th of May, 
with his force now increased to nine men besides himself, set 
out under Carpenter's guidance towards Prairie City, twenty 
miles northeastward. Bondi says : — 

'' There were ten of us, — Captaiu Brown, Owen, Frederick, Sal- 
mon, and Oliver Brown; Henry Thompson, Theodore Wiener, James 
Townsley, Carpenter, and myself. Our armament was this : Captain 
Brown carried a sabre and a heavy seven- shooting revolver ; all his 
sons and his son-in-law were armed with revolvers, long knives, and 
the common ' squirrel rifle ; ' Townsley with an old musket, Wiener 
with a double-barrelled gun, I with an old-fashioned flint-lock mus- 
ket, and Carpenter with a revolver. The three youngest men — 
Salmon Brown, Oliver, and I — rode without saddles. By order of 
Captain Brown, Fred Brown rode first, Owen and Carpenter next ; 
ten paces behind them,- old Brown : and the rest of us behind him, 
two and two. Our way from Middle Creek to Ottawa Creek was 
along the old military road between Fort Scott and Fort Leav- 
enworth. When we had nearly reached the crossing of the old 
California road at the ford of the Marais des Cygnes, we saw by the 
fading watch-fires of a camp, liardly a hundred and fifty steps before 
us, an armed sentinel pacing. While Fred Brown rode slowly for- 
ward. Carpenter turned back and told Captain Brown that here was 
probably a division of United States dragoons who were ?*cting as 
posse for the marshal. BroMTi thereupon gave Carpenter his in- 
structions in a few words. We were to ride forward slovA-ly with no 
indication of the least anxiety, and otherwise to imitate his example. 
The sentry let Fred Brown and Carpenter approach within twenty- 
five paces, and then cried, ' Who goes there ? ' Fred answered just as 
loud, ' Free-State.' The sentry called the officer of the guard, and 
while he was coming the rest of us rode, by Brown's order, within five 
paces of where Fred and Carpenter were halted, forming ourselves 
in an irregular group. When the officer appeared, Carpenter spoke 
up and said we were farmers, living not far from Prairie City, who 
had gone to Osawatomie upon invitation of the settlers to protect 
them against an expected invasion from Missouri ; had been there 
two days, seen and heard nothing of the Mi.ssourians, and so had 
resolved to return home. Upon this Lieutenant Mcintosh, the com- 
manding officer, appeared, and Carjienter repeated wliat he had said. 
None of the rest of us said a word ; but the deputy marshal came 



294 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN [1856. 

forward and requested the lieutenant to detain us till dayliglit, so that 
he might make further inquiries. Mcintosh replied sternly : ' I have 
uo orders to stop peaceahle travellers, such as these people are ; they 
are going home to their farms;' adding to Carj)enter and the rest of 
us: 'Pass on! pass on!' We defiled slowly through the camp, 
forded the stream, and when the soldiers were a mile behind us pushed 
on rapidly. About four o'clock in the morning of May 27 we reached 
the secluded spot on Ottawa Creek which Carpenter had indicated to 
us as a safe place for camping. In the midst of a primeval wood, 
perhaps half a mile deep before you come to the creek, we pitched 
our camp beside a huge fallen oak, and tethered our horses in the un- 
derwood. Old Brown inspected the region, and set guards ; Carpenter 
brought corn for the horses and coarse flour for ourselves, and then 
Brown began to get breakfast." 

In this secure retreat they remained until June 1, when 
they set forth to find the enemy, whom they defeated at 
Black Jack ; and it was here that James Redpath on May 
30, and Colonel Sumner on June 5, visited Brown. Red- 
path was at that time a Kansas correspondent of the 
"New York Tribune" and other Eastern newspapers, and 
was spending a few days near Prairie City to watch the 
movements of the Missourians and the dragoons, and, if 
possible, to give some aid to the Free-State men. His 
horse had been stolen in Palmyra by one of the Border 
Ruffians, and he was arrested himself the next day on 
suspicion of stealing dragoon horses, but soon discharged. 
While looking about on Priday for an old preacher who 
lived near Ottawa Creek, and who was to carry his New 
York letter for mailing to Kansas City, some twenty miles 
off, the lively newspaper correspondent stumbled upon the 
hiding-place of John Brown, whom he then saw for the first 
time. Redpath's description of the adventure, somewhat 
abridged, is this : — 

" The creeks of Kansas are all fringed with wood. T li)st my way, 
or got oif tlie path that crosses Ottawa Creek, when suddenly, thirty 
paces before me, I saw a wild-looking man, of fine proportions, with 
pistols of various sizes stuck in his belt, and a large Arkansas bowie- 
knife prominent among them. His head was imcovered; his hair 
M'as uncombed ; his face had not been shaven for many months. We 
were similarly dressed, — with red-topped boots worn over the pan- 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 295 

taloons, a coarse blue shirt, and a pistol-belt. This was the usual 
fashion of the times. 

" ' Hello ! ' he cried, ' you 're in our camp I ' 

" He had nothing in his right hand, — he carried a water-pail in his 
left; but before he could speak again I had drawn and cocked my 
eight-inch Colt. I only answered in emphatic tones : * Halt ! or I '11 
fire ! ' He stopped, and said that he knew me ; that he had seen me 
in Lawrence, and that I was true; that he was Frederick Brown, 
the sou of old John Brown ; and that I was now within the limits of 
their camp. After a parley of a few minutes I was satisfied that I 
was among my friends, shook hands with Frederick, and put up my 
pistol. He talked wildly as he walked before me, turning round 
every minute as he spoke of the then recent afiiiir of Pottawatomie. 
His family, he said, had been accused of it ; he denied it indignantly, 
with the wild air of a maniac. His excitement was so great that he 
repeatedly recrossed the creek, until, getting anxious to reach the 
camp, I refused to listen to him until he took me to his father. He 
then quietly filled his pail with water, and after many strange turnings 
led me into camp. As we approached it we were twice challenged 
by sentries, who suddenly appeared before trees, and as suddenly 
disappeared behind them. 

"I shall not soon forget the scene that here opened to my view. 
Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, all ready sad- 
dled for a ride for life, or a hunt after Southern invaders. A dozen 
rifles and sabres were stacked against the trees. In an open space, 
amid the shady and lofty woods, there was a great blazing fire with 
a pot on it ; three or four armed men were lying on red and blue 
blankets on the grass ; and two fine-looking youths were standing, 
leaning on their arms, near by. One of them was the youngest sou 
of old Brown, and the other was ' Charley,' the brave Hungarian, 
who was subsequently murdered at Osawatomie. Old Brown himself 
stood near the fire, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a large fork 
in his hand. He was cooking a pig. He was poorly clad, and his 
toes protruded from his boots. The old man received me with great 
cordiality, and the little band gathered about me. But it was only 
for a moment, for the Captain ordered them to renew their work. 
He respectfully but firmly forbade conversation on the Pottawatomie 
affiiir; and said that if I desired any information from the company 
in relation to their ccmduct or intentions, he as their captain would 
answer for them whatever it was proper to communicate. In this 
camp no manner of profane language was permitted ; no man of im- 
moral character was allowed to stay, except as a prisoner of war. 

'' . . . It was at tliis time that the old man said to me : 'I would 
rather have the small-pox, yellow fever, and cholera all together in 



296 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

my camp, than a man without principles. It's a mistake, sir,' he 
continued, ' that our people make, when they think that bullies are 
the best fighters, or that they are the men fit to oppose these South- 
erners. Give me men of good principles ; God-fearing men ; men 
who respect themselves, — and with a dozen of them, I will op- 
pose any hundred such men as tliese Buford ruffians.' I remained 
in the camp about an hour. Never before had 1 met such a band 
of men. They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate. Six of 
them were John Brown's sons." ^ 

Boncli remembers this adventure of Redpath, and relates 
some other conversation that then took place. Their chance 
visitor told them it looked well for their neighbors that in 
spite of the great rewards already offered for their arrest, 
no traitor had been found to pilot the enemy to that camp, 
although many in the neighborhood had by that time come 
to know where it was. He told them further that on their 
perseverance might depend the success of the good cause 
in Kansas ; that when he should go back to Lawrence he 
would try to have the Lawrence " Stubs," a small military 
company, join them ; and meantime hoped they would not 
forsake Douglas County, as Brown had threatened to do, 
unless the settlers took up arms to aid him in his warfare. 
The cheerful counsel of the young coiTCspondent encouraged 
them, and, as Bondi says, " they felt as if they were the ex- 
treme outpost of the free North in Kansas." Doubtless 
they were ; and with prophetic insight Brown said that day, 
" We shall stay here, young man ; we will not disappoint 
the hopes of our friends." '■^ 

" Charley, the brave Hungarian," of whom Redpath 
speaks, was Charles Kaiser, a Bavarian, who had settled 

1 In fact, there were but four of Brown's sons here, and his son-in-law 
Thompson. In .some other points the account is exaggerated ; hut in the 
main it gives a true picture of the scene, as remembered by Bondi, Owen 
Brown, and others. At this time John and Jason Brown were prisoners, 
on their way to Lecompton. Jason was soon discharged ; but John Brown, 
Jr., remained at Lecompton until September 10, when he wa^ released on 
bail and went to Lawrence. 

2 According to Bondi, Brown had suggested, a day or two before, that 
if they had to leave Kansas on account of the cowardice or indifference of 
their friends, they might go to Louisiana and head an uprising of the slaves 
there, to make a diversion in favor of Kansas. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 297 

in Hungary when young, and in 1849 had served in the 
Hungarian revolutionary army as a hussar. His face, says 
Bondi, was marked with lance and sabre-cuts ; and he had 
a taste for war. He was living on a claim three or four 
miles from this camp, and had made the acquaintance of 
Brown in the '' Wakarusa war " the winter before. Eecosr- 
nizing in Bondi and Wiener fellow-countrymen of the 
same political opinions, he became intimate with them as 
soon as he joined Brown's company on the 28th of May. 
The same day they had been joined by Ben Cochrane, a 
member of the Pottawatomie Kifies, and a neighbor of 
Bondi and Wiener, who told them how their houses had 
been burned, their cattle driven off, and their goods plun- 
dered a day or two before ; while the United States dra- 
goon officer refused to interfere on behalf of the settlers 
on the Pottawatomie, saying, " I have no orders." Bondi 
goes on to say : — 

" The next day (May 29), Captain Sliore, of the Prairie City Rifles, 
ami Dr. Weatfall, a neighbor of Carpenter, came to our camp and 
told us that many horses and other property had been stolen near Wil- 
low Springs, ten or tifteeu miles distant. They asked Brown ' what 
he calculated to do f ' Brown replied, ' Captain Shore, how many 
men can you furnish me f ' Shore answered that his men were just 
now very unwilling to leave liome ; to which Brown said, ' Why did 
you send Carpenter after us f I am not wilUng to sacrifice my 
men, without Iiaving some hope of accomplishing something.' That 
evening (May 2'.)) Shore visited us again, and brought some Hour, 
of which we had great need, as a present. Brown then said to him 
that if his neigiihors did not stxm take the offensive, he should cer- 
tainly be compelled to leave that region, for tlie Missourians would 
sooner or later find out our hiding-place. Captain Shore asked him 
to delay his departure a few days, saying that he knew the Missou- 
rians suspected we were in ambush somewhere near Prairie City, and 
that nothing save the fear of us had protected this neighlx.rhood so 
long asrainst attack and pillage ; hut should Shannon's militia find 
out that we were away, it would be all over with the Free-State 
men. Brown gave him till next Sunday to gather the settlers, so that 
with combined forces we might hunt for the militia and offer them 
battle wlierever we might find them; Shore promised to do his best, 
and so tlie matter stood when Redpath visited us. The day after his 
visit (May 31) Shore came to tell us that a large baud of Shannon's 



298 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

militia were encamped ou the Santa Fe road, by Black Jack Spring, 
and at ten o'clock p. M. returned with Carpenter and Mewhinney 
bringing serious news. They said that three men from the Black 
Jack camp had attacked a block house in Palmyra, three miles from 
Prairie City, where several neighbors' families were visiting; that the 
seven Free-State men there, though well armed, had, upon a simple 
deniand, given up to the tliree Missourians three rifles, three revolv- 
ers, and live double-barrelled guns. Such a disgrace, our visitors 
thought, could not be endured patiently ; and Shore said he had 
sent word to all the settlers to muster at Prairie City by ten the next 
morning (Sunday), where he would expect us with our arms and 
lu)rses. Captain Brown grasped his hand and said, ' We will be 
with you ! ' and our friends departed about midnight. The next morn- 
ing Brown had breakfast earlier than common, and when Carpenter 
came back about nine o'clock, to escort us to Prairie City, we were 
ready to start. Carpenter, Kaiser, and Townsley assisted Wiener 
to empty his bottle. Captain Brown called out, ' Eeady, Forward, 
March ! ' and we were on the road towards the eneniy. Our appear- 
ance was indescribable. Except Kaiser, none of us had proper 
attire ; for our clothes readily showed the eflfects of bush-whacking, 
continued for the last eight days; we had come down to wearing 
ideas, suspicions, and inemories of what had once been boots and 
hats. Still in the best of spirits, and with our appetite still better, 
just whetted by our .scant breakfast, we ft)llowed Captain Brown, — 
he ah)no remaining serious, and riding silent at our front." ^ 

Prairie City is half-way between Lawrence and Osa- 
watomie, and near by is Hickory Point, where Dow was 
murdered by Coleman. Pate had been encamped a day or 
two among the *' black-jack oaks," which gave an nncouth 
name to the stream, and though Brown's force was much 
the smaller, — only twenty-eight men including Brown liim- 
self, — he did not hesitate to attack at once. The day was 
Sunday, and Brown had attended a prayer-meeting at Piairie 
City ; while there, three men who had been at the sack of 
Lawrence rode by and unconsciously disclosed Pate's where- 
abouts. Brown set out that night, and at four o'clock the 
next morning reached a patch of black oaks on a slope to- 

1 I have aV)ndged this arcomit Proin the letters of Bond!, printed both 
in German and Ent^disli in the Kansas newspapers of 1883-84. Oceasion- 
ally the English version varies from the German, and I follow the latter in 
preference. Prairie City is about five miles southwest of Black Jack. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 299 

wards the north near Pate's camp,, but away from the water. 
Leaving the horses there in the charge of his son Fred, he 
marched his other twenty-six men in double file until he 
came within reach of the enemy's fire, and still pushed for- 
ward under fire until he gained a place of shelter in sight 
of Pate's tents, but screened by the slope of land, where he 
took position in a ravine ten feet deep. The firing began a 
little after six a. m., and lasted until one or two o'clock in 
the afternoon. During this time many of the men on both 
sides deserted ; but Captain Brown crept round on his hands 
and knees behind the ridge, and persuaded some of the de- 
serters to fire on the horses of the enemy. At this point 
Fred Brown (who " was a little flighty," as his brother 
Owen says) came riding up on Ned Scarlet, Owen's colt, 
waving his sword, and shouting, " Hurrah ! come on, boys ! 
we 've got 'em surrounded ; we 've cut off all communica- 
tion." He could be heard a long way off ; and his great size 
and odd gestures alarmed the enemy. He was shot at, but 
not hit, and the firing upon Pate's horses was kept up by the 
stragglers. Alarmed at all this, Captain Pate tied a white 
handkerchief on a ramrod as a flag of truce, and with that 
came forward to meet Captain Brown, who was returning 
from his successful ruse.^ He first met Owen Brown, who 
commanded in his father's absence, to whom he said, " We 
are government officers." Owen replied, " You are just 
the kind of government officers we want to fight." Cap- 
tain Brown came as Pate was saying that he was an 
officer acting under orders of the United States Marshal 
of Kansas, and that he supposed they did not intend to 
fight against the United States. He was going on in this 

1 Owen Bi'own adds (April, 1885) : "When my brother Frederick rode 
' Ned Scark't ' entirely around where the fight was going on, he was not so 
flighty but he knew well what he was doing ; he made a dashing appear- 
ance, brandished his sword, and shouted so loud that all could distinctly 
hear, ' Come on, boys, we 've got them surrounded, and have cut off their 
communications.' At this very time Pate's horses and mules were tum- 
bling down pretty lively, and within five or eight minutes Pate came out 
with his white handkerchief tied to a ramrod, and with him a Free-State 
prisoner. I think Fred's liding aiound there as he did, happened just at 
the right time, and had a most excellent effect." Like all the witnesses, 
Owen praises the courage of Captain Shore. 



300 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856 

way when Browu stopped him by saying, " I understand 
exactly what you are, and do not wish to hear any more 
about it. Have you any proposition to make me ? " There 
being no definite answer to this query, Brown continued, 
" Very well ; I have one to make to you : you must sur- 
render unconditionally." Then, taking his pistol in hand, 
Brown returned with Captain Pate to the enemy's line, 
leading with him eight of his own men, and among them 
Owen Brown, to receive the surrender of the one-and-twenty 
men who were left under Pate's orders. As they drew near 
the line, where Pate's lieutenant Brockett was in command. 
Brown called upon him also to surrender. He hesitated ; and 
Captain Pate, to whom Brown turned requesting that he 
should order his lieutenant to yield, also hesitated, seeing 
the great apparent superiority of his force over Brown's. 
Quick as thought, Brown placed his pistol at Pate's head, 
and cried in a terrible voice, " Give the order ! " The Vir- 
ginian yielded, and bade his men lay down their arms, which 
they sullenly did. Brown's force of eight unwounded men 
then took the guns and other arms of the discomfited party, 
threw them into wagons, and marched off the twenty odd 
prisoners to their own position. Here a treaty or agree- 
ment was drawn up and signed by John Brown and Captain 
Shore on one side, and Captain Pate and Lieutenant Brockett 
on the other. 

This agreement (or rather Pate's copy of it) seems to have 
been folded as a letter, and indorsed or addressed on the back 
as follows : " United States Marshal Hays, Colonel Coffey, 
General Heiskell, or Judge Cato, or friends at Baptiste Pa- 
ola, K. T." These were the persons into whose hands Pate 
and Brockett hoped the paper would fall ; and it did appar- 
ently reach William A. Heiskell, of Paola, one of the persons 
named, whose widow a few years since sent it to the Kansas 
Historical Society.'^ The agreement was not carried out, for 

1 Two copies of this agreement were made, one of wliieh Brown kept, 
and it was sent by his widow, long after his death, to the Kansas Historical 
Society at Topeka, where it has heen for six or eight years. Sometime 
after this, the duplicate, which had lie(»n retained by Pate, was also sent 
to the librarian of the Historical Society, Mr. F. G. Adams ; and now 
the two papers, torn and faded, but still legible, are exhibited side by 



185G.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 301 

a knowledge of the capture of Pate (communicated to his 
friends perhaps by this very paper, sent to Paola) brought 
from Missouri a large force under General Whitfield to res- 
cue him. Brown also was presently largely reinforced ; and 
a sanguinary battle seemed imminent. But on the 5th of 
June Colonel Sumner appeared with a force of United 
States troops and summoned Captain Brown to an inter- 
view, which resulted in his prisoners being set at liberty. 
It is said that Pate was at the sacking of Osawatomie two 
days afterward, while John Brown, Jr., was not liberated 
till the 10th of September following. 

Brown's report of his men after the fight, made to a com- 
mittee at Lawrence, was much the same as the list already 
given : — 

(Ou the face of the sheet.) 

List of names of men wounded in the battle of Palmyra or Black 
Jack ; also of eight volunteers icho maintained their position during 
that fight, and to whom the surrender was made June 2d, 1856. 

Henry Thompson, } "^"^^^^^^^ ^^^^ly, Thompson dangerously. 

Mr. Parmely, wounded slightly in nose, also in arm so that he had 

to leave the ground. 
Charles Keiser. 
Elizur Hill. 
Wm. David. 
Hugh Mewhinney. 

Mr. Cochran, of Pottawatomie (B. L.). 
Owen Brown. 
Salmon Brown, accidentally wounded after the fight, and liable to 

remain a cripple. 
Oliver Brown. 

(Names of all Avho either fouglit or guarded the horses during the 
fight at Palmyra, June 2d, 18.56, will be found on other side.) 

Respectfully submitted by John Brown. 

Messrs. Whitman, Eldrige, and others. 

side in Mr. Adams's invahiahle collection. The copy printed on page 
240 was obtained by Mr. Eobinson, of Paola, from Mrs. Heiskell of the 
same town, which in the addr(='ss is termed " Baptiste Paola." The form 
of the agreement and the order of signatures proves that Captain Brown 
and not Captain Shore was the real leader at Black Jack, — a fact which 
some have questioned. 



302 



LIFE AND LEITERS (»F JOHN BKOWN. 



[18J6. 



(Oil the back of tlio :«hoi't.) 

List of volunteers, either eupofied or puardixg horses during the fight 
at Fahiii/ru or Black Jack, Jtnie '2d, 1856. 



Saiiil. T. SIkw, Captaiu. 

Silas Moro. 

Daviil Hi'iulricks, Horse Guanl 

Ilirain MoAllister. 

Mr. Paniioly, wouuded. 

Silvester Harris. 

Elkanah Tiiiimous. 

T. Weiuer. 

A. Boiuly. 

Hugh Mewluiiney. 

Charles Keiser. 

Eliziir Hill. 

Win. David. 

Mr. Cochran, of Pottawatomie. 

(this blauk to be filled). 

(Signed) 



0. A. Carpenter, badly wounded. 

Augustus Shore. 

Mr. Townsley, of Pottawatomie. 

Wni. 1>. Hay den. 

John Mewluuney. 

Montgomery Shore. 

Henry Thompson, dangerously 

wounded. 
Elias Basinger. 
Owen Brown. 

Fred'k Brown, Horse Guard. 
Salm<in Brown, wounded & 

crippled. 
Oliver Brown. 



Joiix Bkowk. 



(Indorsed in Brown's handwriting, '• List of Volunteers, etc., at 
Black Jack.") 

It will be noticed that Brown omits his own name in 
these lists, except as signed to the report ; and also that lie 
pnts Captain Shore first, as being next himself in rank. 
Ap[iarently the fight would not have ended with the capture 
of Pate and his men had it not been for the daring of Brown 
and his sons, who were the true heroes of the day ; although 
others did well. These sons were all worthy of their father ; 
they knew as little how to give way or to fear odds as he 
did. Owen Brown once said to me of his brothers, '' I never 
could discover the least sign of cowardice about those boys ; " 
and to another person he said, "Xone of us ever made much 
pretension to being scared.'' 

Mrs. Robinson, wife of the nominal Free-State governor 
of Kansas, whose husband had been under arrest for some 
weeks when the fight at Black Jack occurred, returned to 
Kansas from ^Massachusetts two days after this fight, and 
about ten days after the Pottawatomie executions. She 
came up the Missouri Eiver from St. Louis by steamboats 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 303 

and reached Kansas City, on the Missouri side of the 
Kansas border, at midnight of June 3, 1856. She says 
in her book : — 

" The la.st day or two of the trip on the Mi.ssouri Rivor minors of 
war became more frequent. Inflammatory extras were tliruvvn upon 
the boats at different hmdings. People at Lexington and other 
points along the river were much excited and preparing for a new 
invasion. The extras stated the murder of eight proslavery men by 
the Abolitionists and the cruel mutilation of their bodies, the death 
of the United States Marshal, of H. C. Pate, and J. McGee. Deeds 
of blood and violence, of which they were hourly guilty, wore charged 
iipon the Free-State men. The following is a sample of the incen- 
diary extras which flew through the border counties : * Murder is 
the watchword and midnight deed of a scattered and scouting band of 
Abolitionists, who had courage only to fly from the face of a wrf)nged 
and insulted people when met at their own solicitation. Men, peace- 
able and quiet, cannot travel on the public roads of Kansas vi-ithout 
being caught, searched, imprisoned, and their lives perhaps taken. 
No Southerner dare venture alone and unarmed on her roads ! ' " 

Concerning the fight at Black Jack, ]Mrs. Robinson says : 

" After a two hours' fire Pate sent f)rward one of his jnen with a 
prisoner and a white flag, and surrendered unconditionally. A few of 
his company fled into Missouri ; among them was Coleman the mur- 
derer. TvA^enty-six men were taken prisoners by Captain Bnum, and 
a quantity of goods stolen from Lawrence was f )un(l in their wagons. 
The delegate to Congress, Whitfield (a proslavery man), left his seat 
before the Congressional Investigating Committee, June 2, at the 
head of a large body of armed men, his stated object being to relieve 
Pate. While Governor Shannon in every instance has stationed 
troops in a tdwn after it has been sacked, he now saw the Free- State 
men rallying to protect themselves, and feared the slave-power would 
lose the ground gained through his servility. He heard, too, of ;iid 
coming from out of Kansas, and is.sued a proclamation on the 4th, 
'commanding all persons belonging to military companies unau- 
tliorized by law, to disperse, otlierwise they would be dispersed by 
the United States troops.' The President's proclamatif)n of Fel)ru- 
ary 11 was appended, and Governor Shanncm stated that it would 
be strictly enforced. A requisition was also made upon Colonel 
Sumner for a force sufficient to compel obedience to the proclama- 
tion. On the 5th of June Colonel Sumner broke in upon the Free- 
State camp and released Captain Pate and las fellow-pi'isoners. 



304 LIFE A^'D LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Colonel Sumner ordered the Free-State men to return quietly to 
their homes; and then, turning to Pate, said: ' What business have 
you here f ' 

" ' I am here by orders of Governor Shannon.' 

'' ' I saw Governor Shannon yesterday, and your ease was specially 
considered ; and he asserted you were not here by his orders.' He 
then added: ' You are Missourians, all of you, and when you crossed 
your State line you trampled on State sovereignty. Now, go, sir, 
in the direction whence you came ; ' and as he closed his remarks 
Colonel Sumner waved his hand for Pate and his party to leave. So 
the brave Pate returned to Westport^ and Kansas City. He ac- 
knowledged the bravery of Brown, for he said Captain Brown rode 
about them sword in hand and commanded a surrender, and they 
were obliged to make it. He spoke well of them in tlieir treatment 
of him while a prisoner." 

The victory of Brown at Black Jack roused the proslavery 
men in Missouri and in Kansas to new fury, while it stimu- 
lated the freemen of Kansas to new efforts. Both parties 
mustered in large force near Palmyra; and on the 5th of 
June a battle seemed unavoidable, until Colonel Sumner, as 
Mrs. Eobinson mentions, came down with a force of United 
States cavalry and put a stop to hostilities. He also sent 
for Captain Brown, as soon as he heard where he was, desir- 

1 The title of this unfortunate Captain Pate, who was an editor in 
Westport, was derived from his commanding the Westport Sharpshoot- 
ers, — a Border Ruffian company, which seems to have emulated the repu- 
tation of the Kickapoo Rangers. "With his command he had obeyed the 
war proclamation of Governor Shannon, been mustered in as a part of 
the Kansas militia, though living in Missouri, and in that capacity had 
escorted Gains Jenkins and George W. Brown, two of the Lawrence men 
arrested for treason, from Westport to a point near Leconiptcn, where they 
arrived on the evening of the 19th of May. He was present, taking part 
with his command, at the sacking of Lawrence ; after which he visited 
Lecompton, where he learned on the evening of the 25th of the executions 
on the Pottawatomie. As a United States deputy marshal he resolved to 
arrest John Brown and his party wherever found. " Witliout following 
his steps in detail to Palmyra and Prairie City, and noting the outrnges 
which Pate perpetrated at these places and in their vicinity, — enougli to 
cover his name with infamy," says an enemy of Brown, — "the two men 
came in contact at a place on the Santa Fe road known as Black Jack." 
What resulted from that contact we know ; the would-be captor was him- 
self cai)tured, held a prisoner for three days by Brown, and then released 
by the United States, only to engage again in the same career. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 305 

'ing an interview. Brown left his intrenched camp on the 
Ottawa and went into the camp of Colonel Sumner, who at 
once visited Brown's camp and came to terms with him, 
bidding him release his prisoners, but making no attempt to 
arrest or punish him,^ except to ask the civil officer who 
accompanied him if he had not some warrants to serve. 
The officer declared that he saw no one whom he wished 
to arrest; and Brown with his men, though charged with 
murder at the Pottawatomie, as well as with treason and 
conspiracy against the Territorial laws, was allowed to go 
forth unpunished and without being disarmed. Captain 
Pate and his men were chided by Colonel Sumner, as Mrs. 
Robinson says ; but their horses, arms, etc., were restored 
to them, even though their guns might have been stolen 
from the national arsenal in Missouri, as was done a few 
months before. Brown felt and complained of this injus- 
tice, but to no avail. He and his little band dispersed at 
Colonel Sumner's command ; but they soon came together 
again, and kept up their organization during the whole 
summer. 

John Brown himself was near Topeka, July 4, when the 
proslavery usurpers in Kansas had determined to disperse 

^ All this is concisely described by John Brown in his letter of June, 
printed in a former chapter. The account by Mrs. Robinson varies in 
some points from that of Brown ; but in such variations Brown is almost 
always correct. The dispersal of the Free-State legislature at Topel^a by 
Colonel Sumner, July 4, is described by William A. Phillips in the "Atlan- 
tic Monthly " for 1879, who brings in Brown as present and advising resist- 
ance, even to Federal authority. It is doubtless true that Brown did more 
than once, while in Kansas, declare that the Federal troops might properly 
be resisted when they upheld the usurping rulers of the Territory ; but 
there is no evidence that he ever sought to attack them. He did finally 
attack an arsenal of the United States in Virginia ; but that was when he 
had fully proved the complicity of the national Government in every evil 
design of the slave-power. The Government which he would have resisted 
in Kansas had Jefferson Davis for one of its ministers ; and the cabinet 
officer controlling the arsenal at Harper's Ferry was Floyd, who afterward 
put government arms into the hands of rebels, and led a division himself. 
In fact, the Federal authority from 1856 to 1861 was but a mask for the 
slave oligarchy. Colonel Phillips commanded a regiment of Indians dur- 
ing the Civil War, then served in Congress, and now lives at Washington. 
I have condensed a little his " Atlantic " paper. 

20 



306 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

the Free-State legislature, which had adjourned to meet 
there on that day. Mr. W. A. Phillips has given some in- 
teresting details of this period. He met Brown at Law- 
rence, July 2, and rode with his party from Mount Oread, 
where the Kansas University now stands, along the Cali- 
fornia road, by Coon Point, and within four miles of 
Lecompton, the proslavery capital (where Brown's son was 
a prisoner), until they reached Big Springs. Mr. Phillips 
says : — 

" There we loft the road, going in a southwesterly direction for a 
mile, when we halted on a hill, and the horses were stripped of their 
saddles, and picketed out to graze. The grass was wet with dew. 
The men ate of what provision they had with them, and I received a 
portion from the captain, — dry beef (which was not so bad), and 
bread made from corn bruised between stones, then rolled in balls and 
cooked in the ashes of the camp fire. Captain Brown observed that 
I nibbled it very gingerly, and said, ' I am afraid you will be hardly 
able to eat a soldier's harsh fare.' 

" We next placed our two saddles together, so that our heads lay 
only a few feet apart. Brown spread his blanket on the wet grass, 
and, when we lay together upon it, mine was spread over us. It 
was past eleven o'clock, and we lay there until two in the morning, 
but we slept none. He seemed to be as little disposed to sleep as I 
was, and we talked ; or rather he did, for I said little. I found that 
he was a thorough astronomer ; he pointed out the different constel- 
lations and their movements. * Now,' he said, ' it is midnight,' as 
he pointed to the finger-marks of his great clock in the sky. The 
whispering of the wind on the prairie was full of voices to him, 
and the stars as they shone in the firmament of God seemed to 
inspire him. ' How admirable is the symmetry of the heavens ; 
how grand and beautiful ! Everything moves in sublime harmony in 
the government of God. Not so with us poor creatures. If one 
star is more brilliant than others, it is continually shooting in some 
erratic way into space.' 

" He criticised both parties in Kansas. Of the proslavery men he 
said that slavery besotted everything, and made men more brutal and 
coarse ; nor did the Free-State men escape his sharp censure. He 
said that we had many noble and true men, but too many broken- 
down politicians from the older States, who would rather pass reso- 
lutions than act, and who criticised all who did real work. A profes- 
sional politician, he went on, you never could trust ; for even if he h;id 
convictions, he was always ready to sacrifice his jirinciples for his 



J 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 307 

advantage.^ One of the most interesting things in his conversa- 
tion that night, and one that marked him as a theorist, was his treat- 
ment of our forms of social and political life. He thought society 
ought to be organized on a less selfish basis ; for while material 
interests gained something by the deificatiou of pure selfishness, men 
and women lost much by it. He said that all great reforms, like the 
Christian religion, were based on broad, generous, self-sacrificing 
priu<;iples. He condemned the sale of land as a chattel, and thought 
that there was an infinite number of wrongs to right before society 
Wduld be what it should be, but that in our country slavery was the 
■ ' sum of all villanies,' and its abolition the first essential work. If 
tlie American jieuple did not take courage and end it speedily, human 
freedom and republican liberty would soon be empty names in these 
United States. 

" He ran on during these midnight hours in a conversation I can 
never forget. The stars grew sharper and clearer, and seemed to be 
looking down like watchers *u that sleeping camp. My companion 
paused for a short time, and I thought he was going to sleep, when 
lie said : ' It is nearly two o'clock, and it must be nine or ten miles 
to Topeka ; it is time we were marching,' — and he again drew my 
attention to his index marks in the sky. He rose and called his men, 
who respondeil with alacrity. In less than ten minutes the company 
had saddled, packed, and mounted, and was again on the march. 
He declined following the road any farther, but insisted on taking a 
straight course over the country, guided by the stars. It was in vain 
that I expostulated with him, and told him that three or four creeks 
were in the way, and the country rough and broken, so that it would 
be difficult to find our way in the dark. We had a rough time of it 
that night, and day broke while we were floundering in the thickets 
of a creek-bottom some miles from Topeka. As soon as daylight 
came and we could see our way, we rode more rapidly ; but the sun 
had risen above the horizon before we rode down the slopes. Across 
the creek and nearly two miles to the right we saw the tents, and in 
the morning stillness could hear the bugles blow in Colonel Sumner's 
caTup. Brown would not go into Topeka, but halted in the timber 
of the creek, sending one of his men with me as a messenger to bring 
him word when his company was needed. He had his horse picketed, 
and walked down by the side of my horse to the place where I crossed 
the creek. He sent messages to one or two gentlemen in town, 
and, as he wrung my hand at parting, urged that we should have 

1 In a later conversation with Phillips, speaking of a Kansas politician, 
he took out his pocket compass, uncovered it, and said : " You see that 
needle : it wobbles about, ;inil is mighty unsteady ; but it wants to point to 
the North. Is your friend like that needle ? " 



308 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

the Legislature meet, resist all who should interfere with it, and 
fight, if necessary, even the United States troops. He had told me 
the night before of his visit to many of the fortifications in Europe, 
and criticised tbem sharply, holding that modern warfare did away 
with them, and that a well-armed brave soldier was the best fortifica- 
tion. He criticised all the arms then in use, and showed me a fine 
repeatiug-ride which he said would carry eight hundred yards ; but, 
he added, ' the way to fight is to press to close quarters.' " 

In August Brown joined the forces of General James H. 
Lane in nortliern Kansas, having first carried his wounded 
son-in-law, Henry Thompson, into Iowa to be taken care of. 
Keturning about the 10th of August with General Lane, 
he proceeded with him to Lawrence and to Franklin, where 
there was some skirmishing ; and from the middle of August 
to the 20th of September he wafiin the field with his com- 
pany, fighting the Missourian invaders. The following de- 
spatch invited him to join Lane (under the name of Cook) 
in an expedition : — 

Mr. Bro wx, — General Joe Cook wants you to come to Law- 
rence this night, for we expect to have a fight on Washington 
Creek. Come to Topeka as soon as possible, and I will pilot you 
to the place. Yours in haste, 

H. Stratton. 

Topeka, 7 o'clock, p. m., Aug. 12, 1856. 

Concerning this affair Mr. Stratton (who now lives in 
Colorado) writes me in these words : — 

"John Brown was with us when 'Fort Saunders,' on Wakarusa 
Creek (I think), was destroyed, and commanded the cavalry. A 
few days before this event Major Hoyt had been murdered at Fort 
Saunders, where he had gone trusting to the fact that he was a 
Free Mason ; but he was murdered, and partinlly buried out on the 
prairie. General Lane sent out an expedition under Captain Shom- 
bre,' who was afterwards shot in the groin at Lecompton, and died 
from the wound. I was second in command of the expedition. We 
discovered Major Hoyt's remains, and removed tliem to our camp, 
which I believe was on the Wakarusa, west of Lawrence. The 
next day we marclied on Fort Saunders. General Lane drew up his 
forces in front of the fort, Captain Brown occupying the right wing 

1 Or Chambree. 



I 



I 



I 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 309 

with his cavah-y. A charge was ordered, and the fort taken ; but 
the iniu-dcrers had fled into the timber and escaped. 

" Large st(jres of bacon, sugar, flour, etc., were captured and loaded 
into our train-wagons. The diuner was loft untasted on the tables 
by the ruffians, so precipitate had been their flight. Captain Brown, 
with his men, was among the first to reach the fort, which was 
surrounded by a high rail fence, inside of which heavy earth-works 
had been thrown up. I was acting as Aid to General Lane, and 
that night piloted him to Topeka. This is the only time I can 
call to iniud when I was with Captain Brown on any expedition, 
though I used to meet liim often at diflferent points. I am not 
certain about Captain Brown being with our party when we came 
in froui Nebraska, but think he was. While with General Lane I 
was charged with his personal safety, as a price had been ofiered for 
his head. If I could sit down with some one who was an active 
participant during the border war, I presume in talking over old 
times I could recall many incidents that have now escaped me." 

By this time Brown's name had become such a terror, 
that wherever the enemy were attacked they believed he 
was in command. In an appeal to the citizens of Lafay- 
ette County, Missouri, urging them to take horses and guns 
and march into Kansas, General Atchison wrote thus, under 
date of Aug. 17, 1856 : — 

" On the 6th of August the notorious Brown, with a party of three 
hundred abolitionists, made an attack upon a colony of Georgians,^ 
murdering about two hundred and twenty-five souls, one hundred 
and seventy-five of whom were women, children, and slaves. Their 
houses were burned to the ground, all their property stolen, — horses, 
cattle, clothing, money, provisions, all taken away from them, and 
their ])lows burned to ashes. August 12, at night, three hundred 
abolitionists, under this same Broion, attacked the town of Franklin, 
robbed, plundered, and burned, took all the arms in town, broke 
open and destroyed the post-office, captured the old cannon ' Sacra- 
mento,' which our gallant Missourians captured in Mexico, and are 
now turning its mouth against our friends. August 15 Brown, with 
four hundred abolitionists, mostly Lane's men, mounted and armed, 
attacked Treadwell's Settlement, in Douglas County, numbering 
about thirty men. They planted the old cannon ' Sacramento ' 
towards the colony, and surrounded them." 

1 At Baptisteville, ten miles northeast of Osawatomie, on an Indian 
reservation. " Preacher Stewart " really commanded the Free-State men. 



310 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

It is not necessary (nor was it in 1856) to believe all the 
stories of battles and sieges which were related on one side 
or the other during this Kansas imbroglio. Even when 
there was a desire to tell the truth, circumstances often 
proved too strong for the narrator. But tlie great reputa- 
tion of Brown as a partisan leader is as fully proved by 
these fictions as by the authentic reports. 

The following letters from John Brown, Jr., in prison at 
Lecompton, seem to be in reply to a suggestion from his 
father that he might be visited and rescued : — 

From John Broivn, Jr., to his Father. 

Lecompton, Aug. 14, 1856. 

You can, at any time you think it best, come to camp and see me, 
especially at evening, without observation. Come to the house of 
Mrs. Wesley, about fifty rods east from the camp, and she will send 
up her boy to let me know that a man wants to see me. You could 
no doubt find a temporary stopping-place either at Captain Thome's 
or at Mr. Lewis's, about a mile south of our camp, near the Cali- 
fornia road. In coming here you will notice two camps ; ours is the 
more easterl//. If you wish to see me, come at evening, early, to the 
captain's tent, and say that you wish to see the prisoners, and you 
M-ill be admitted, without a doubt. The captain is very accommo- 
dating ; you can come and go incog. The captain of Company I 
says he has been after you more than two months. Don't let them 
get you. I very much want to see you, but don't run any great risk 
on this account. At any time you wish to write me, direct to 
X. Y. Z., and enclose in an envelope to C. W. Babeock, Lawrence. 

Aug. 16, 1856. 

The prospect now appears so favorabk^ for us that it does seem as 
though I had better not try to meet you just now. The prospect is 
that there will be either a writ of habeas corpus issued, or a change 
of venue, which will in either case take us into the States for trial. 
Have sent you several letters lately by persons going to Topeka, and 
I enclose one which I wrote on the 13th. i The bearer of it, not 
seeing you there, has returned it. I was in hearing of the attack on 
Colonel Titus this mf)rning. A messenger has just come in, stating 
that he (Titus) and several others were taken prisoners ; Titus 
wounded. He also reports that a Free-State man was either killed 

1 Not extant. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 311 

yesterday or last night, as he was found at Titus's stiff and cold. I 
saw the fire of Titus's house. Well, it seems that Heaven is 
smiling on our arms. The case may be that within a few days I 
shall think it altogether best to try to meet you. A very few days 
will determine. All well. May God bless you ! Good-by. 

I should be very glad to see you, if you think it prudent to visit 
me. There is nothing here, that I know of, in the way. If you 
come just at edge of evening, no one need know it is you ; but don't 
risk yourself if you are aware of danger. There are spies around. 
In view of present prospects, the prisoners think best that no at- 
tempt should be made at present to release thein. We are all well 
treated here. Captain Sackett is a noble man. Should be very 
glad to know where I could communicate with you from time to 
time. J. B., Jr., in prison. 

Indorsed by John Brown. 

The allusion to the attack on '^ Titus," in the above letter, 
will be made more clear by a longer letter to Jason Brown, 
written in part on the same day, but apparently begun ear- 
lier in the day. The same letter contains some notice of 
what had been happening in Kansas since' the middle of 
July. These chronicles are not wholly exact ; but it was 
not j;)ossible then to obtain precise information in Kansas, 
and the news sent to the prisoners was likely to come from 
both sides. They were not held in strict confinement, and, 
after a while at first, did not suffer much hardship. Indeed, 
they might easily have escaped, as will soon appear. 

From John Brotvn, Jr. 

Camp of U. S. Cavalry, near Lecompton, Kansas, 
Aug. 16, 1856. 

Dear Brother Jason and others, — Agreeably with my 
promise to write often, I have sent you lately not less than four 
letters, — one or two by private hands, the others by mail. Events 
of the most stirring character are now passing within hearing 
distance. I -should think more than two hundred shots have been 
fired within the past half hour, and within a mile of our camp. 
Have just, learned that some eighty of our Free-State men have 
" pitched into " a proslavery camp this side of Lecompton, which 
was commanded by a notorious proslavery scoundrel named Titus, 
one of the Buford party from Alabama. A dense volume of smoke 



312 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

is uow rising in the viciuity of his house. The firing has ceased, 
and we are most impatient to learn the result. 

During the past month the Ruthans have heen actively at work, 
and have made not less than five intrenched camps, where they have 
in difi'erent parts of the Territory established themselves in armed 
bands, well pr()vided with provisions, arms, and ammunition. From 
these camps they sally out, steal horses, and rob Free-State settlers 
(in several cases murdering them), and then slip back into their 
camp with their plunder. Last week a body of our men made a 
descent upon Franklin,^ and after a skirmishing fight of about three 
hours took their barracks, and recovered some sixty guns and a 
cannon, of which our men had been robbed some montlis since, on 
the road from Westport. Our loss was one man killed and two 
severely wounded, but it is thought they will recover. The enemy 
were in a log building, from which tliey kept up a sharp fire, while 
they themselves were quite unexposed. Our men then had recouree 
to a system of tactics not laid down in Scott. They procured a 
wagon loaded with hay, and running it down against the building 
set it on tire, when the rascals immediately surrendered. Yesterday 
our men had invested another of their fortified camps on Washington 
Creek, a south bi-anch of the Wakarusa ; and it was expected that 
an attack would be made upon it last night. 

Hurrah for our side ! A messenger has just come in, stating that 
on the approach of our men, some two hundred and fifty or three 
hundred in number, at Washingtcm Creek yesterday, towards even- 
ing, the enemy broke and Hed, leaving behind, to fall into tlie hands 
of our men, a lot of provisions and a hundred stand of arms. But 
this is not all. The notorious Colonel Titus, who only a day or two 
since was heard to declare that " Free- State men had only two 
weeks longer to remain in Kansas," went out last night on a 
marauding expedition, in which he took six prisoners and a lot of 
horses. This morning our men followed him closely and fell upon 
his camp, killed two of his men, liberated the prisoners he had 
taken, took him and ten other prisoners, set fire to his house, and 
with a lot of arms, tents, provisions, etc., returned, having in the 
fight had only one of our men seriously wounded. 

August 19. 

The afliiir last mentioned was conducted with such expedition that 
the United States troops, located about a mile off", had not time to 
roach the scene before it was all over and our men on their return, 
marching in good order. Our men numbered four hundred, and had 

^ Four miles south of Lawrence. The fights that followed are those 
mentioned by At^-hison on page 309. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 313 

the cannon which they had taken at Franklin. With this they fired 
six balls, out of seven shots, through Colonel Titus's house before 
his gang surrendered. This series of victories has caused the greatest 
fear among the proslavery men. While the firing was going on, the 
citizens at Lecompton fled across the river in the greatest consterna- 
tion. Great numbers are leaving for Missouri. Colonel Titus was 
seriously wounded by a Sharpe's-rifle ball passing through his hand, 
and lodging in liis shoulder too deep to be reached. It is thought 
the wound will prove fatal. 

Day before yesterday Goveraor Shannon and Major Sedgwick of 
the army went to Lawrence to obtain the prisoners our men had 
taken ; but our men would consent to give them up only on condition 
that they on the other side should give up the prisoners that had been 
taken on warrants at Franklin, the next day after the battle there, 
for participating in it; and, as a further ccmdition, that they should 
give up the cannon which had been taken from Lawrence at the time 
it was sacked ; and still further agree to do all in their power to 
break up the camps of armed desperadoes, as well as to prevent their 
coming in from Missouri. These terms were complied with ; and 
yesterday the prisoners were exchanged and the cannon at Lecompton 
given up to our men, and it is now once more in Lawrence. Thus 
you see they have themselves set their own laws at nought by that 
exchange of prisoners whom they had taken im warrants for those 
we had taken by the might of the i^eople. Lane's men were on hand 
and did good service. The Chicago company that had been turned 
back on the Missouri River were on hand and in the thickest of the 
fight. Some say Colonel Lane was in it himself. Father returned 
with the overland emigrants, leaving in Nebraska Henry Thompson, 
Owen, Salmon, Frederick, and Oliver, much improved in health. 
He was in the fight at Franklin, and also aided in routing the gang 
on Washington Creek, as well as in the capture of Titus and his 
crew. By this time he is in Iowa, or some other distant region. 
He is an omnipresent dread to the rufiians. I see by the Missouri 
papers that they regard him as the most terrible foe they have to 
encounter. He stands very high with the Free- State men who will 
fight ; and the great majority of these have made up their minds that 
nothing short of war to the death can save us from extermination. 
Say to the men of Osawatomie to become thoroughly prepared, for 
at any time their lives may depend upon their efficiency and vigi- 
lance ; that military organization is needed for something else than 
amusement. Don't fail to urge the enrolment of every able-bodied 
Free-State man, and place yourselves in a position to act both ofien- 
sively and defensively in the must efficient manner. Stringfellow 
' and Atchison are said to be again raising a force to come in from 



314 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Missouri and carry out their kmg-cherisbed plan to drive out or ex- 
terminate our people. If our men are wide awake we shall gain the 
day. The prospect for Kansas becoming a free State never looked 
brighter. Now is the time to prepare, and continue prepared. 

Have not yet learned of any definite action of Congress in regard 
to us prisoners, but we doubtless shall in a few days. Wealthy con- 
tinues to have the chills and fever every few days. Write often. 
Ever your afiectionate brother, 

John. 

The last light at Osawatomie, which for some reason or 
other was more celebrated than any of the encounters in 
which Brown engaged during 1856, was the third skirmish 
that had taken place at or near that historic village. The 
first was on June 2, and is mentioned by Brown in his letter 
of June 24 ; the second was early in August, and is probably 
the same as the attack on Buford's men about Middle Creek, 
soon to be spoken of, which occurred August 5 ; ^ the third 
was on the 30th of August, and was provoked by the defeat 
of Buford's men. In both these August encounters John 
Brown had some share. 

A Boston clergyman (Rev. J. W. Winkley), who was in 
Kansas as a young man in 1856, has described to me with 
some detail John Brown on the war-path, as he saw him 
during the fights of August. Mr. Winkley was then liv- 
ing on the South Pottawatomie, twenty miles above Osawa- 
tomie, and had enlisted to join Brown there, with twenty 
others, upon the news of an invasion of Missourians. They 
travelled all night, reached Osawatomie in the morning, 
breakfasted there, and then went with Captains Cline and 
Shore (seventy men in all) to attack the enemy, whom they 
surprised and defeated to the number of two hundred or 
more. Soon after. Brown came up from Osawatomie and 
congratulated the men on their victory, at which he had not 
been present. A Missourian, mortally wounded, wished 
greatly to see Brown before he died. The old hero rode up 
to the wagon where the wounded man was, and said with 
some sternness : " You wish to see me ; here I am. Take 
a good look at me, and tell your friends when you get back 
to Missouri what sort of man you saw." Then in a gentler 

1 This is one of the battles reported by Atchi.son. 



k 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 315 

tone he added: "We wish no harm to you or your compan- 
ions. Stay at home, let us alone, and we shall be friends. 
I wish you well." Meantime the wounded man had with 
an effort raised himself up, viewed Brown from head to 
foot, as if feasting his eyes on the greatest curiosity, and 
then sank back exhausted, saying: "1 don't see as you are 
so bad ; you don't look or talk like it." Then, reaching out 
his hand, the dying Missourian said : " I thank you." Brown 
clasped his hand, said " God bless you ! " and rode away 
with tears in his eyes. Mr. Winkley also describes an onset 
made by Brown upon some of his own men, supposing them 
to be the enemy, the next morning. He had taken volun- 
teers the day before, after the fight, and ridden away on 
some excursion, bidding the rest go home to their farms. 
They went back and camped where they had met the enemy 
that morning. While at breakfast Brown came upon them 
suddenly, supposed them to be foes, and in a moment went 
charging down upon them at the head of his little band of 
thirty men. Before he attacked he discovered who they 
were ; but had they been Missourians he would have put 
them to rout by his ready courage. 

The condition of matters in Kansas and Missouri was such 
at this time that it was almost impossible to obtain correct 
information of what was going on, even from eye-witnesses. 
Owen Brown, who had been badly injured after the campaign 
of June, and afterward very ill in Iowa, whither he had gone 
to regain his health, wrote just before the fight at Osawato- 
mie the following letter to his mother in the Adirondacs, 
which illustrates the exaggerations then everywhere current ; 
while it gives some true touches concerning men and things : 

Owe7i Brown to his Mother at North Elba. 

Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, Aug. 27, 1856. 
Dear Mother, — The last news we had from Kansas, father 
was at La-WTence, and had charge uf a company, — the bravest men 
the Territory could afford. Those who come through here from the 
Territory say that father is the most daring, courageous man in 
Kansas. You have no doubt heard that the Free-State men have 
taken two forts, or blockh<nises, with a fine lot of arms, several 
prisoners, and two cannon. Shannon was obliged to flee for his life ; 



316 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

afterwards came to Lane to negotiate for peace. He proposed that 
the Free-State men should give up the prisoners and arms they 
had taken ; at the same time they (tlie enemy) should still hold 
our men as prisoners, and keep all the arms they had taken from 
the Free-State men. But Lane would not consent to tliat ; he 
required Shannon to deliver up the howitzer they had taken at 
Lawrence, release some prisoners, disarm the proslavery men in 
the Territory, and do all in his power to remove the enemy from 
tlie Territory. With fear and tremhling, Sliannon consented to 
all of Lane's demands. 

There is now at this place a company of volunteers from Maine, 
Massachusetts, and Michigan, — about eighty in all. We hear lately 
that about three thousand jMissourians have crossed at St. Joe and 
other places, and have gone armed into the Territory; that Gov- 
ernor Woodson has sent four hundred mounted men on to the fron- 
tier to intercept our volunteers and prevent tliem from carrying in 
provisions and ammunition, whicli are much needed now in Kansas. 
The last information comes from reliable sources, and is probably 
true, — a portion of it. We also learn that the Free-State men 
have melted up all the old lead-pipe they can get hold of for ammu- 
nition ; and now the news comes from reliable sources that Lane is 
about to enter Leav.'nworth with two thousand men ; that he lias 
sent word to the citizens of Leavenworth, requiring them to deliver 
up a few prisoners they had taken, with some wagons and other 
property, or lie will destroy the town forthwith. Colonel Smith, of 
Leavenworth, commander of Government troops, refuses to protect 
the proslavery men of the Territory, replying that Lane is able to 
dress them all out, troops and all. Shannon made a speech to them, 
urging them to cease hostilities, — tliat lie c(nild not defend them 
(that is, our enemies). At present our enemies and the Missourians 
are trembling in their boots, if reports are true. 

I have gained strengtli quite fast, and am now determined to go 
back into the Territory, and try the ele])hant another pull. We 
hope that men will volunteer by the thousands from the States, well 
armed, with plenty of money to buy provisions with, which are 
scarce in Kansas Territory. There are probably several thousand 
acres less of corn in Kansas than there would have been had it not 
been for the war. We look hard for help : now comes the tug of 
war. We have sent on men to learn the state of affiiirs on the 
frontier, and will move on into the Territory shortly. We are now 
waiting for one other company, which is within a few days' drive 
of here. For the want of time I leave out many particulars in 
connection with the taking of those fnrts, which would be quite 
int<?resting, and show Yankee skill and strategy, at least. If any 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 317 

of our folks write to us, or to me (I assume another name, George 
Lyman), direct to George Lyman, Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, 
care Jonas Jones, Esq. Mr. Jones will take them out of the office 
here and send them on by private conveyance. We cannot hear 
from you in any other way. Perhaps you know of a different way, 
but I do not. 

Your afi'ectionate sou, 

Owen Brown. 

P. S. Have not heard from Fred since Oliver and William 
Thompson took him into the camp ; nor have I heard from Henry, 
Salmon, William, and Oliver since they left this place to go home. 

" Fred " was John Brown's son Frederick, who three days 
after this letter was written was shot down by Missourians 
near his uncle Adair's house in Osawatomie, the morning 
of the fight there. William Thompson was the brother of 
Henry, and had just come from North Elba. 

John Brown made two written reports of the Osawato- 
mie engagement of August 30. The more concise is that 
sent to his family ten days after. A longer report of the 
same date, which he published in the newspapers, follows 
it immediately : — 

John Brown to his Family. 

Lawrence, Kansas Territory, Sept. 7, 1856. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — I have one moment 
to write to you, to say that I am yet alive, that Jason and femily 
were well yesterday ; John and family, I hear, arc well (he being 
yet a prisoner). On the morning of the 30th of August an attack 
was made by the Ruffians on Osawatomie, numbering some four 
hundred, by whose scouts our dear Frederick was shot dead without 
warning, —he supposing them to be Free-State men, as near as we 
can learn. One other man, a cousin of Mr. Adair, was murdered by 
them about the same time that Frederick was killed, and one badly 
wounded at the same time. At this time I was about three miles 
off, where I had some fourteen or fifteen men over night that I had 
just enlisted to serve under me as regulars. These I collected as 
well as I cf)uld, with some twelve or fifteen more ; and in about 
three quarters of an hour T attacked them from a wood with thick 
undergrowth. With this force we threw them into confusion for 
about fifteen or twenty minutes, during which time we killed or 
wounded from seventy to eighty of the enemy, — as they say, — and 



318 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

then we escaped as well as we could, with one killed while escaping, 
two or three wounded, and as many more missing. Four or five 
Free-State men were butchered during the day in all. Jason fought 
bravely by my side during the fight, and escaped with me, he being 
unhurt. I was struck by a partly-spent grape, canister, or rifle shot, 
which bruised me some, but did not injure me seriously. " Hitherto 
the Lord has helped me," notwithstanding my afflictions. Things 
seem rather quiet just now, but what another hour will bi-ing I can- 
not say. I have seen three or four letters from Euth, and one from 
Watson, of July or August, which are all I have seen since in June. 
I was very glad to hear once more from you, and hope that you will 
continue to write to some of the friends, so that I may hear from you. 
I am utterly unable to write you for most of the time. May the God 
of our fathers bless and save you all ! 

Your afi'ectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

]Monday morning, Sept. 8, 1856. 

Jason has just come in ; left all well as usual. John's trial is to 
come off or commence to-day. Yours ever, 

John Brown. 

the fight of osawatomie. 

Early in the morniug of tlie 30tli of August the enemy's scouts 
approached to within one mile and a half of the western boundary of 
the town of Osawatomie. At this place my sou Frederick (who was 
not attached to my force) had lodged, with some four other young 
men from Lawrence, and a young man named Garrison, from Middle 
Creek. The scouts, led by a proslavery preacher named White, 
shot my son dead in the road, while he — as I have since ascer- 
tained — supposed them to be friendly. At the same time they 
butchered Mr. Garrison, and badly mangled one of the young men 
from Lawrence, who came with my son, leaving him for dead. 
This was net far from sunrise. I had stopped during the night 
about two and one half miles from them, and nearly one mile from 
Osawatomie. I had no organized force, but only st>me twelve or 
fifteen new recruits, who were ordered to leave their preparations for 
breakfast and follow me into the town, as soon as this news was 
brought to me. 

As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy, 
I placed twelve of the recruits in a log-house, hoping we might be 
able to defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men 
together, whom we armed with guns; and we started in the direc- 
tion of the enemv. After going a few rods we could see them 



1856.] THE KANSAS STKUGGLE CONTINUED. 319 

approaching the town iu line of battle, about half a mile oif, upon 
a hill west of the village. I then gave up all idea of doing more 
than to annoy, from the timber near the town, into which we 
were all retreated, and which was filled with a thick growth of 
underbrush ; but I had no time to recall the twelve men iu the log- 
house, and so lost their assistance in the fight. At the point above 
named I met with Captain CUne, a very active young man, who 
had with him some twelve or fifteen mounted men, and persuaded 
him to go with us into the timber, on the southern shore of the 
Osage, or Marais des Cygnes, a little to the northwest from the 
village. Here the men, numbering not more than thirty in all, 
M-ere directed to scatter and secrete themselves as well as they could, 
and await the approach of the enemy. This was done in full view 
of them (who must have seen the whole movement), and had to be 
done in the utmost haste. I believe Captain Cline and S(»me of his 
men were not even dismounted iu the fight, but cannot assert posi- 
tively. When the left wing of the enemy had approached to within 
common rifle-shot, we connnenced firing, and very soon threw the 
nortliern branch of the enemy's line into disorder. This continued 
some fifteen or twenty minutes, wliich gave us an uncommon oppor- 
tunity to annoy them. Captain Cline and his men soon got out of 
ammunition, and retired across the river. 

After the enemy rallied we kept up our fire, until, by the leaving 
of one and another, we had but six or seven left. We then retired 
across the river. We had one man killed — a Mr. Powers, from 
Captain Cline's company — in the fight. One of my men, a Mr. 
Partridge, was shot in crossing the river. Two or three of the 
party who took part in the fight are yet missing, and may be lost or 
taken prisoners. Two were wounded ; namely. Dr. Updegrafl' aud a 
Mr. CoUis. I cannot speak in t(JO high tenns of them, and of many 
otliers I have not now time to mentif)n. 

One of my best men, together with myself, was struck by a par- 
tially spent ball from the enemy, in the commencement of the fight, 
but we were only bruised. The loss I refer to is one of my missing 
men. The loss of the enemy, as we leara by the diff'erent state- 
ments of our own as well as their people, was some thirty-one or 
two killed, and from forty to fifty wounded. After burning the 
town to ashes and killing a Mr. Williams they had taken, wliom 
neither party claimed, they took a hasty leave, can-ying their dead 
and wounded with them. They did not attempt to cross the river, 
nor to search for us, and have not since returned to look over their 
work. 

I give this in great haste, in the midst of constant interruptions. 
My second son was with me in the light, and escaped unharmed. 



320 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

This I mention for the benefit of his friends. Old Preacher White, 
I hear, boasts of having killed uiy son. Of course he is a lion. 

John Brown. 

Lawrence, Kansas, Sept. 7, 1856. 

Jason Brown (•' my second son "), who was his father's 
bod^'-guard in this fight, relates this incident of the 
campaign : — 

" Captain Shore is a good and brave man, but I cannot learn that 
he claims to be the hero of Black Jack. I care nothing for the 
honors of war. It matters but little whether the battles of Black 
Jack and Osawatomie are looked upon as victories or defeats. I 
was at the latter engagement, but I do not know whetlier I had the 
honor of killing (as it is looked upon by soww persons) anybody at 
Osawatomie or nut. If I did, I would gladly transfer tlie lionor of 
the whole slaughtering part of it to the Rev. David N. Utter, and to 
his brother in divinity, Rev. Martin White. The only real comfort- 
ing recollection of my part in it is, that I did all in my power to 
alleviate the sufferings of a young and very intelligent Mississippian' 
named Kline, if I remember correctly, who was teiribly wounded, 
but able to talk. He had been wounded a day or two before, in an 
attack by Free- State men on a camp of Georgians, seven or eight 
miles southeast of Osawatomie. The weather was hot, and the 
wound below the knee of the right leg, wliich was terribly shattered 
by a Sharpe's-riile ball, was filled with maggots. How it was that 
he did not have the right care I do not know. All about the house 
where he was lying was excitement and hurry, to be ready to meet 
the enemy we expected soon to attack us. I got help, cleansed his 
wound of the vermin, dressed it, bathed him, and changed his 
clothes. While this was being done he asked my name. I told 
him. He said, * I thought the Abolitionists were savages before I 
M-as brought here.' As he lay there, pale and exhausted from loss of 
blood and suSering, he spoke of his home and friends in Mississippi, 
and how he wished he had never come to Kansas. He said he would 
soon be at rest. He asked me if I would not take care of him for 
tlie few hours he had to live. I told him I would. As I was sitting 
by his bed and saw the tears flowing from a heart full of sorrow and 
trouble, alone among strangers, and far from home, I thought this : 
If these are some of the things which make war glorious and honor- 
able, deliver me from the honors of war. In a moment more I was 
suddenly called away to defend my own life, and probably to do more 
of such work. I would rather have the real good it did nie then to 
care as best I could for a few liours for a misenided dyiuff enemy, 



1856.] THE KAiS^SAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 321 

than to have all the glory ever gained by the proudest and most 
successful waiTior that ever shook the earth with the thunder of his 
guns and the tread of his mighty armies of beasts and men, since the 
world began. I heard afterwards that this young man was rescued 
from 'the abolition fiends' by Reid's army, and thrown into a 
wagon with other wounded men, and died somewhere on the way to 
Missuuri. 1 don't know that this is true." 

A contemporary proslavery account of this fight is as 
follows, copied from a Missouri newspaper : — 

" The attack on Osawatomie was by part of an army of eleven 
hundred and fifty men, of whom Atchison was major-general. Gen- 
eral Keid, with two hundred and fifty men and one piece of artillery, 
moved on to attack Osawatomie ; he arrived near that place, and was 
attacked by two hundred Aboliti(jnists under the command of the no- 
torious John Brown, who commenced firing upon Reid from a thick 
chaparral four hundred yards off. General Reid made a successful 
charge, killing thirty-oue, and took seven prisoners. Among the 
killed was Frederick Brown. The notorious John Brown was also 
killed, by a proslavery man named White, in attempting to cross the 
Marais des Cygues. The proslavery party have five wounded. On 
the same day Captain Hays, with forty men, attacked the house of 
the notorious Ottawa Jones, burned it, and killed two Abolitionists. 
Jones fled to the cornfield, was shot at by Hays, and is believed to 
be dead." 

The Indian missions in Kansas were little centres of civi- 
lization, and that which was first established near the crossing 
of the Ottawa River, near what is now Ottawa, was long an 
oasis in the desert. There the Presbyterians and Baptists 
started missions ; thither the Rev. Joseph Meeker, in 1834, 
brought the first printing-press, and there the first Kansas 
book was printed ; there lived the famous Indian and his 
excellent white missionary wife, John Tecumseh Jones 
(usually called " Tawey Jones," Ottawa being properly pro- 
nounced Ot-^«f?r-wa). There John Brown and his friends 
were always Avelcome, and the great house of this Christian 
Indian w\ts " long the hospitable headquarters of Free-State 
men," as Wilder says, with whom Horace Greeley made this 
part of his tour in Kansas in 1859, — spending a night at 
Jones's house. Brown said of it and its owner in 1857 : "I 

21 



322 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

saw while it was stauding, and afterwards saw the ruins of, 
a most valuable house, the property of a highly civilized, in- 
telligent, and exemplary Christian Indian, which was burned 
to the ground by the Ruffians, because its owner was sus- 
pected of favoring Free-State men." ^ The house was after- 
wards rebuilt. Its destruction by the Missouri invaders, — 
a detachment from the force that burued Osawatomie, Au- 
gust 30, — has been described to me by Jason Brown : — 

" On the 29th of August word came to my father, who was posted 
a mile from Osawatomie, on the road to Paola and Westport, on 
the Missouri side of the Marais des Cygnes, near where the State 
Insane Asylum now stands, that the Missourians were on their way 
from Westport. At the same time that they attacked Osawatomie, 
they sent a force of fifty men to burn the house of our friend Jones, 
and kill him if possible. He was a tall and stout Christian Indian, 
who had married a Miss Emery from Vermont ; he owned much 
land, had two or three hundred head of cattle, improved breeds of 
all domestic animals, and had committed no offence, except being 
friendly to the Free-State men. A little after midnight he heard a 
great noise among his dogs, and sprang out of bed ; as he did so, he 
heard the scabbards of the ^Missourians strike on the flag-stones in 
front of ills house as they dismounted from their horses. They had 
let down his cornfield fences, and ridden on all sides, hoping to 
find a force of Free-State men there in his double log-house, — 
at that time the best in Kansas ; but there was nobody iu it except 
Jones and his wife, an Indian boy, and a ' ueuti-al ' named Parker 

1 Mr. Adair wrote from Osawatomie, July 16, 1856, to " Bro. Jolin 
Brown," by Jason, informing him that of $49.50 received in June fiom 
" Bro. J. R. B.," he had assigned $25 to John l^rown, Sr., and his unmar- 
ried sons ; $10 to J. B., Jr. ; $7.25 to Jason, and $7.28 to S. L. Adair. 
He says he had sent him $10 immediately, — but it had come back to liiin, 
and he had now sent it by George Partridge to " you or some of your sons " 
at Ottawa Jones's ; $8 was paid to Frederick and $7 to Henry Thompson, 
July 2, at Jones's. This shows that the house of this Indian farmer was a 
rendezvous for Brown and his party, while they were under arms in that 
anxious summer, and while they were hunted like wolves over the prairie. 
Sarah l^rown says : "On the day that my brother Frederick was killed, 
near Osawatomie, my father lost his hat in^fighting. When lie found the 
body of liis son he was forced to take Ids hat to cover his own head. After- 
ward, the Lidian (Ottawa Jones), of whom he often spoke, gave him a cap. 
When on one of his visits home, at North Elba, he brought the cap with 
him, and said he wanted it kept in Toeniory of Ottawa Jones." 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 328 

from Missouri. The Euffiaus shouted, ' We 've got you now, — 
come out, come out ! ' Nobody replying, and fearing an ambush, 
they cried, ' Fire the house ! ' and began to do so, setting it on fire in 
several places. Jones had seized liis gun and stood in his front hall, 
thinking what he could do. ' 1 knew we must shoot,' he told me ; 
' we must fight, or make our escape the best way we could.' He 
opened the door and cocked his gun ; the euemy hearing it called 
out, ' Don't shoot ! ' whereupon he sprang out in his night-clothes, 
and ran as far as he could into a thirty-acre cornfield close by, the 
enemy shooting at him, but missing him. It was a wet and cold 
night (August 29). He ran through his corn, and far beyond, about 
two miles in all; looking back, he saw his house burning. The 
guide in this attack was Henry Sherman, of Pottawatomie, who had 
worked for Jones and knew the house well. Mrs. Jones, in the 
mean time, had put about four hundred dollars in gold and silver 
into a bag, and tried to conceal it and herself in the house. The 
captain of the Euffiaus, looking through the door, saw her and said : 
' Come out I we won't hurt you, — you have been kind to us.' As 
she went out, she dropped the money in the grass, and it was picked 
up by Sherman or some of the band. They found Parker, the Mis- 
sourian, ill in bed ; as they approached him with their weapons, he 
said, ' Don't kill me, — I'm sick.' ' We always find a good many 
sick men when we come round,' was the reply, — and with that they 
dragged him out into the road, knocked him on the head and cut his 
throat, but did not sever the jugular vein ; then dragged him to the 
bank of the Ottawa and threw him in among some brush. I found 
him afterward in a hospital at Lawrence, able to tell his story, to 
which he added, ' I 'm not a neutral any more ; I 'm a Free-State 
man now ; they '11 never take me alive again.' The Ruffians sacked 
the house, which was burned to the ground, as described by my father 
in one of his speeches." 

A marble monument now stands at Osawatomie, erected 
in 1877 to commemorate the battle there, and bearing on 
one side this legend : — 

This inscription is also in commemoration of the 
HEROISM OF Captain John Brown, who com- 
manded at the battle of Osawatomie, 
Aug. 30, 1856, who died and con- 
quered American slavery 
at Charleston, Va., 
Dec. 2, 1859, 



324 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

lu dedicating this monument on the twenty-first anni- 
versary of the fight (Aug. 30, 1877), Charles Robinson, of 
Lawrence, wlio presided, said among other things : — 

"This is an occa.sion of no ordinary merit, being for no less an 
object than to honor and keep fresh the memory of tiiose who freely 
offered their lives for their fellow-men. We are told that ' scarcely 
for a riglitO(3us man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man 
some would dare to die ; ' but the men whose death we commemorate 
this day, cheerfully ofiered themselves a sacrifice for strangers and a 
despised race. They were men of convictions, though death stared 
them in the face. They were cordial haters of oppression, and would 
■fight injustice wherever found ; if framed into law, then they would 
light the law ; if upheld and enforced by government, then govern- 
ment must be resisted. They were of Revolutionary stocli, and held 
tliat when a long train of abuses had put the people under absolute 
despotism, it was right and duty to throw off' such government and 
provide guards for future security. The S(.»ul of John Brown was the 
inspiration of the Uuicjn armies in the eniauci{)ation war, and it will 
be the inspiration of all men in the present and distaut future who 
may revolt against tyranny and oppression ; because he dared to be 
a traitor to the government that he might be loyal to humanity. To 
the superficial observer John Brown was a failure. So was Jesus 
of Nazareth.^ Both suffered ignominious deatli as traitors to the 

1 The comparison here drawn by this speaker is too close and literal to 
be accepted by all Christians, but it was designed to express the deepest 
reverence for John Brown, and to indicate that his memory is inmiortal. 
In fact, this Ohio Puritan is the best-known name in Kansas ; not that the 
million people, — white, black, and red, — who now dwell in this State, all 
know accurately who he was and what he did ; but they have all heard of 
him, and keep his memory alive by tales and disputes. And in the districts 
where he moved about, armed at all points, the air is full of legends con- 
cerning him, — some true, some false, and most of them neither true nor 
false, but a mixture of both. This is specially the case in the region around 
Osawatomie, that village of a single street and a few detached houses, in 
the angle where those two romantic rivers, — the Marais des Cygnes (or as 
Brown spelled it, " Merodezene ") and the Pottawatomie, — come together 
and form the Osage. The town takes its name from the first three letters 
of " Osage " prefixed to the last three syllables of " Pottawatomie." Tliia 
centaur-like epithet was the work of another Brown, who early settled in 
this spot, but who is now quite forgotten in the greater fame of his name- 
sake. The Marais des ("ygnes has a more picturesque name, as if the old 
French iioyageurs who gave the title had found the swan s\vimn)ing there. 
They never did, but it was some other great bird to which they gave the 



185G] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 325 

goverunieut, yet one is now hailed as the savior of a world from sin, 
and the other of a race from bondasre." 



On the 8th of September, after hearing the particulars of 
the Osawatomie fight, John Brown, Jr., wrote to his father 
at Lawrence thus : — 

Monday Morxing, Sept. 8, 1856. 

Dear Father and Brother, — Colonel Blood has just handed 
me your letter, for which I am most grateful. Having before heard 
of Frederick's death and that you were missing, my anxiety on your 
account has been most intense. Though my dear brother I shall 
never again see here, yet I thank God you and Jason still live. Poor 
Frederick has perished in a good cause, the success of which cause I 
trust will yet brtng joy to millions. 

My "circumstances and prospects" are much the same as when I 
last wrote you. The trial of Mr. Williams and me is before Cato, in 
October, — T believe the 4th. Don't know whether or not the others 
will get any trial here. Judge Locompte is reported sick, and as no 
notice of the names of the jurors and witnesses has been served on 
them, it looks as if the intention is to hold them over to another 
term. 

Wealthy has the chills and fever almost every day. She succeeds 
in checking it only a short time. It would afford us a great satisfac- 
tion to see you and Jasou ; he, and I have no doubt you, could come 
up with some one without any risk. If Governor Geary should not 
release us, I still think of going with you, whenever you think it best, 
to some place out of reach of a I'e-arrest. I can, I have no doubt, 
succeed in making my escape to you from here, where W. and Johnny 

old poetic name ; and here, too, on this " Marsh of the Swans," the 
vulture of slavery croaked its foulest note before committing suicide. A 
long, slow, winding, and sombre stream, fringed everywhere with dark 
woods, it creeps through the counties south of Lawrence, where the worst 
ruffians had their roosts, and where the darkest deeds were done. The 
annals of theft and murder and arson on the Scotch border, around which 
Walter Scott and the older ballad-makers cast an atmosphere of romance, 
were repeated in ruder ways in these Missouri Marches, of which John 
Brown and James Montgomery came to be the self-appointed wardens. 
Montgomery was himself a Scotchman by descent, whose great-grandfather 
had fought for the young Chevalier at C'ulloden ; but Brown was of the un- 
mixed Puritan breed, and inherited from deacons and captains of Connec- 
ticut "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." Montgomery's widow and 
sons still live in Kansas, but none of the Browns remain there alive. 



P)2n LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BKOWN. [1850. 

might join ns. There is some talk of our being removed to Leaven- 
worth soon. If we are, I suppose the difficulty of escajjc would bo 
very much increased. I am anxious to see you both, iu order to per- 
fect some phm of escape iu case it should appear best. Come up if 
you consistently can. 

The battle of Osawatomie is considered here as tJie great fight so 
far, and, considering the enemy's loss, it is certainly a great victory 
for us. Certainly a very dear burning of the town for them. This 
has proven most unmistakably that ''Yankees" ivill "fight." 
Every one I hear speaking of you is loud iu your praise. The 
Missourians in tliis region show signs of great fear. Colonel Ct>f>k ' 
was heard to say that if our party were prudent iu view of their suc- 
cess, there was nothing to prevent our having everything our own 
way. 

Hoping to see you both soon, I am as ever 

Your affectionate son and brother. 

(Not signed.) 

On the reverse, " Captain J. B , Lawrence." 

Near the above, iu John Brown's handwriting, is "J. Brown, Jr., 
iu prison." 

In connection with this fight, I may quote from a let- 
ter concerning John Brown which I received after his 
death from Richard Mendenhall, a Quaker, then living 
near Osawatomie, He said : " I was at a public meeting 
held in the spring of 1856 at Osawatomie, for the purpose 
of considering what course should be pursued relative to 
submitting to the 'bogus laws' (of Governor Shannon's Ter- 
ritorial Legislature), more especially the payment of taxes 
under them. I was very unexpectedly chosen chairman of 
the meeting. John Brown was present, and made a very 
earnest, decisive, and characteristic speech. For the action 
of that meeting in taking a bold stand against the ' bogus 
laws ' we were all indicted, but the warrants were never 
served. I next met John Brown again on the evening before 
the battle of Osawatomie. He with a number of others was 
driving a herd of cattle which they had taken from proslavery 
men. He rode out of the company to speak to me, when I 
playfully asked him where he got those cattle. He replied, 
with a characteristic shake of the head, that ' they were good 

^ Of the United States Army. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 327 

Free-State cattle now.' In the tenth mouth, 1858, John 
Brown and two others — one of them Stevens — came to my 
house and stayed several days, being detained by high water. 
I found him capable of talking interestingly on almost every 
subject. He had travelled a good deal in Europe on account 
of his business, and he imparted to me some valuable hints 
on different branches of business. I once heard a stranger 
ask the Rev. S. L. Adair if he knew what John Brown's 
principles were ; and he replied that his relation to John 
Brown gave hira a right to know that Brown had an idea 
impressed upon his mind from childhood that he was an 
instrument raised up by. Providence to break the jaws of 
the wicked ; and his feelings becoming enlisted in the affairs 
of Kansas, he thought this was the field for his operations. 
Last winter, when Brown took those negroes from Missouri, 
he sent them directly to me ; but I had a school then at my 
house, and the children were just assembling when they 
came. I could not take them in, and was glad of an excuse, 
as I could not sanction his mode of procedure." Neverthe- 
less, Richard ]\Iendenhall added, much in the spirit of John 
A.Andrew's phrase ("Brown himself was right"), "Men 
are not always to be judged so much by their actions as by 
their motives. I believe that John Brown was a good man, 
and that he will be remembered for good in time long hence 
to come." 

The state of affairs immediately preceding the fight was 
made known by many letters such as the following, written 
by a Kansas farmer, Cyrus Adams, who emigrated from 
Massachusetts, to his b.rother at home : — 

Lawrexce, Kansas, Aug. 24, 1856. 

Dear Brothek, — Yon prolialily learn of the state of affairs licre 
in Kansas as well as T can describe thein. We live under a repub- 
lican form of government, so called, — a form of government which 
allows its people to be murdered every day, and lifts no hand for 
their protection ; and so we are all of us liable to be murdered any 
day. Every little while we are set upon by bands of ruffians acting 
under the officers of the General Government ; towns are sacked and 
burned, men murdered, and property destroyed. Until lately the 
Free-State follis have not ofiFered much resistance to these outrages. 



328 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

It was known that bauds of these ruffians encamped in the vicinity, 
where they carried on their trade of horse-stealing and robbery ; and 
murdered a man with whom I was well acquainted : he was riding 
by near one of these camps, and was shot dead by some of the guard. 
His name was Major Hoyt, of Deerfeld, Mass. Another man was 
shot near the same place. A few days ago a brother-in-law of Mr. 
Nute, whom you saw in Concord, came into the Territory. He in- 
tended to stop iu Leavenworth. He brought his wife, and left her 
with Mr. Nute until he could go back and put up a house. When 
returning, and within two miles of Leavenworth, he was shot, and, 
horrible to relate, was scalped in the Indian fashion. A man — or 
a beast — took his scalp and carried it about the streets of Leaven- 
wortli oti a long pole, saying that he " went out to get a damned 
Abolition scalp, and got one." Another man went to Kansas City 
for a load of lumber ; he v.^as shot and scalped in the same way. So 
you may judge of the fcdks we have to deal with. If they catch a 
man alone they show no mercy. 

Two Aveeks after the date of this letter, Governor Geary 
reached Kansas to supersede Shannon and his proslavery 
secretary Woodson, who was acting governor. At that 
time Lawrence was a military camp. All the roads lead- 
ing thither ■were blockaded by armed bodies of Southern 
marauders, and every day violence was offered to Free- 
State citizens. Guerilla parties of Free-State men were 
also abroad, making reprisals on proslavery men. Between 
these bodies there was little safety for any one. Geary at 
once distributed large numbers of his proclamations, order- 
ing all bodies of armed men to lay down their arms and 
retire to their homes and ordinary occupations. He de- 
clared his intention to protect the Territory from further 
violence, and this promise was tolerably well kept. When 
questioned by the people at Lawrence (which he visited 
for the first time September 12) whether it would be safe 
for them to go to their homes in other parts of the Terri- 
tory, he replied : " You had better stay in town a few days 
longer, for mutual protection ; but be careful that you do 
nothing in violation of the spirit of my proclamation. To 
defend yourselves against an attack will not incur my dis- 
pleasure." At this time there were some eight hundred 
Free-State men assembled in Lawrence, but a few days 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 329 

after the number was much reduced. Soon after Geary's 
removal by Buchanan, he wrote a " Farewell Address to 
the People of Kansas," dated March 12, 1857, in which he 
fully describes the condition of 'things on his first arrival, 
— the time of which I am writing. He says : " I reached 
Kansas, and entered upon the discharge of my official duties 
in the most gloomy hour of her history. Desolation and 
ruin reigned on every hand ; homes and firesides were 
deserted ; the smoke of burning dwellings darkened the 
atmosphere ; women and children, driven from their habi- 
tations, wandered over the prairies and among the wood- 
lands, or sought refuge and protection even among the 
Indian tribes. The highways were infested with numerous 
predatory bands, and the towns were fortified and garrisoned 
by armies of conflicting partisans, each excited almost to 
frenzy, and determined upon mutual extermination. Such 
was, without exaggeration, the condition of the Territory at 
this period." 

It was in the midst of such scenes that the Border Ruf- 
fians, provoked by the recent successes of the Kansas farm- 
ers, raised an army of twenty-seven hundred men for their 
last great invasion of the Territory, and what they meant 
should be a final attack on Lawrence, where John Brown 
then was. While this force was mustering, Charles Robin- 
son, who had just been discharged from prison, wrote a few 
letters to John Brown, of which the first is as follows : — 

Lawrence, Sept. 13, 1856. 
Captain John Brown. 

Dear Sir, — Governor Geary has been here and talks very ivell. 
He promises to protect us, etc. There will be no attempt to arrest 
aay one for a few days, and I think no attempt to arrest you is 
contemplated by him. He talks of letting the past he forgotten, 
so far as may he, and of commencing anew. If convenient, can you 
not come to town and see us ? ^ I will then tell you all that the 
governor said, and talk of some other matters. 
Very respectfully, 

C. Robinson. 

^ The interview solicited bj^ Robinson did take place at a house in 
Lawrence, and in course of it, according to Jolin I3rown, Jr., who was 
present, Robinson not onlv did not censure Brown for his Pottawatomie 



330 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

On the same sheet of letter-paper is a longer letter to 
Brown from his son John, written the same day : — 

John Broiun,' Jr., to his Father. 

All seem to be pleased with (ji-eary. They tlnuk that while he 
must talk of enforcing the Territorial laws, he has iuteuded to let 
them lie a dead letter; says no Territorial otficer or court shall arrest 
or try. Although he says iu his proclamatiou that all armed men 
must disband, yet he says our men better ludd together a few days 
until he can clear the IteiTitory of the militia ; requests our men to 
enroll themselves, choose their own officers, and consider him as chief 
and themselves as his guard. I am inclined to the belief that unless 
something unusual shall turn up within a few days, you had better 
return home, as I have no doubt an attempt will be made to arrest 
you, as well as Lane, whom Geary says he is under obligations to ar- 
rest. His plan, no doubt, will be to get the assistance of Free-State 
men to aid in making arrests. Don't allow yourself to be trapped 
in that way. Captain Walker thinks of going East via Nebraska 
soon. I do hope ynu will go with him, for I am sure that you will 
be no m(jre likely to be let alone tlian Lane. Dont go into that 
secret military refmjee plan as talked of by Mohinson, I beg of you. 
I shall go into Mr. Whitman's house, about two and a half miles west 
of Lawrence, where I shall make arraugemeirts for Jasou and com- 
mence cutting hay. 

Robinson to John Brown. 

Lawrence, Sept. 14, 1856. 
Captain John Brown. 

My dear Sin, — I take this opportunity to express to you 
my sincere gratification that the late report that you were among 
the killed at the battle of Osawatomie is incorrect. Your course, 
so far as I have been informed, has been such as to merit the 
highest praise from every patriot, and I cheerfully accord to you 
my heartfelt thanks for your prompt, efficient, and timely action 
against the invaders of our rights and the murderers of our citi- 
zens. History will give your name a proud jdace on her pages, 
and posterity will pay homage to your heroism in the cause of God 

executions, but urged him to undertake similar work elsewhere ; to whicli 
Brown replied, " If you know of any job of that sort that needs to he done, 
1 advise you to dn it yourself," or words to that effect. Robinson now 
denies that he made such a proposition. 



1856] THE KANSxVS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 331 

and huinatiity. Trusting that you will conclude to remain in Kan- 
sas, and serve " during the war" the cause you have done so much 
to sustain, and witli earnest prayers for your health, and protection 
from the shafts of death tliat so thickly beset your path, I subscribe 
myself, Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

C. ROBINSO!?. 

Lawrence, Sept. 14, 1856. 

To THE Settlers of Kansas, — If possible, please render 
Captain Jtihu Brown all the assistance he may require in defending 
Kansas from invaders and outlaws, and you will confer a favor upon 
your co-laborer and fellow-citizen, 

C. ROBINSOX. 

At this time, as these letters prove, there was no question 
among the Free-State men of Kansas concerning the ser- 
vices which Brown had rendered. The feeling-against him 
ill consequence of the Pottawatomie affair had subsided ; 
nor was it till years afterward that this feeling was mali- 
ciously revived. The general effect of Brown's deadly blow 
has been described ; but it may be asked what were its im- 
mediate consequences in the region where it was directly 
felt. There are no better witnesses to this than the two 
neighbors, of the men that suffered, — George Grant and 
James Hanway, — already quoted. Grant said in 1880 : 
" Both parties were greatly alarmed at first. The proslav- 
ery settlers almost entirely left at once, and the Free-State 
people were constantly fearful of vengeance. As a matter 
of fact, there was no more killing on either side in that 
neighborhood. Dutch Henry, — Henry Sherman, — was 
killed in the spring of 1857, but politics had nothing to do 
with it." Judge Hanway, who died in 1881, said : — 

" It was thought that the effect of the Pottawatomie affair would 
be disastrous to the settlers who had taken up their quarters in this 
locality.^ For a few weeks it looked ominous. I spent most of my 

^ As to the wisdom of John Brown's gpneral policy of brave resistance and 
stern retaliation, the sagacious Judge Hanway says : " In the early Kansas 
troubles, I considered the extreme measures which he adopted as not the 
best under the circumstances. We were weak and cut off, as it were, from 
our friends. Our most bitter enemies received their support from an ad- 
joining State. We were not in a condition to resist by force the power of 



332 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

time in the brush. The settlement was overnin by the ' law and 
order ' men, who took every man prisoner whom tliey came across, 
' jay-hawked ' horses and saddles, and even, in several cases, work 
cattle ; ]>ut after these raids ceased, the proslavery element became 
willing to bury the hatchet and live in peace. The most ultra of 
those who had been leaders left the Territory, only to return at 
periods to burn the house of some (obnoxious Free-State man. The 
Pottawatomie affair sent a terntr into the proslavery ranks, and those 
who remnined on the creek were as desirous of peace as any class of 
the community." 

Brown's only autograph account, so far as I know, of the 
attack on Lawrence, in September, 1856, is the following, 
■written in Januaiy, 1857, as part of his address before New 
England audiences : — 

THE LAWRENCE FORAY. 

" I well know, that, on or about the 14th of September last, a large 
force of Missourians and other ruffians, numbering twenty-seven hun- 
dred (as stated by Governor Geary), invaded the Territory, burned 
Franklin, and while the smoke of that place was going up behind 
them, they, on the same day, made their appearance in full view of, 
and within about a mile of, Lawrence. And I know of no possible 
reason why they did not attack and burn that place ex(;ept that about 
one hundred Free-State men vcdunteered to go out on the oj^en plain 
before the town and there give them the offer of a figlit, which they de- 
clined, after getting some few scattering shots from our men, and then 
retreated hack towards Franklin. 1 saw that whole thing. The 
government troops at this time were with Governor Geary at Lecomp- 
tou, a distauee of twelve miles onli/ from Lawrence, and, notwith- 
standing several runners had been to advise him in good time of the 
approach or of the setting out of the enemy, who had to marcli some 

the Border Ruffians, backed and supported as they were by the administra- 
tion at Washington. Events afterwanl proved tliat the most desperate 
remedies, as in the Pottawatomie affair, were best. In place of being 
the forenmner of additional strife and turmoil, the result proved it was a 
peace measure." Charles Robinson, in an article written for the "Kansas 
iMagazine" many years ago, said of the executions by Brown: "They had 
the eilect of a clap of thunder from a clear sky. The slave men stood 
aghast. The officials were friglitened at this new move on the part of 
the supposed subdued free men. This was a warfare they wei-e not ])re- 
pared to wage, as of the bcnm fide settlers there were four free men to one 
slave man." 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 333 

forty miles to reach Lawrence, he did not on that memorable occasion 
get a single soldier on the ground until after the enemy had retreated 
back to Franklin, and had been gone for more than five hours. Pie 
did get the troops there about midnight afterwards; and that is the 
way he saved Lawrence, as he boasts of doing in his message to the 
bogus Legishiture ! 

" This was just the kind of protection the administration and its 
tools have afforded the Free-State settlers of Kansas from the first. 
It has cost the United States more than half a million, for a year 
past, to harass poor Free-State settlers in Kansas, and to violate all 
law, and all right, moral and constitutional, for the sole and only 
purpose of forcing slavery upon that Territory. I challenge this 
whole nation to prove before Grod or mankind the contrary. Who 
paid this money to enslave the settlers of Kansas and worry them 
out ? I say nothing in this estimate of the money wasted by Ctjn- 
gress in the management of this horrible, tyrannical, and damnable 
affair." 

In what Brown here says of Governor Geary, he does 
some injustice to that officer, who proved to be the best 
governor that Kansas had during the reign of terror in 
1855-56. His motives were political, no doubt ; but he had 
the heart of a man and the courage of a soldier, and soon 
placed himself, in effect, on the Free-State side. He might 
have dispersed the invaders about Lawrence more speedily, 
but he was not then wholly master of the situation, or did 
not feel himself to be. As the course of events at Law- 
rence, September 14-15, has been variously represented, I 
will hei-e cite the evidence of eye-witnesses and contem- 
porary reporters. H. L. Dunlop, then of Lawrence, but 
now of Topeka, says : — 

" I was at that time a member of John Wright's company. What 
name I went by on the rolls I will not say. Many of us went under 
fictitifnis names. My next younger brother, who was with Tiie in tliat 
command, went by the name of Henry Preston. You will find his 
name on the list of Lecompton prisoners. He was captured at Hick- 
ory Point with Colonel Harvey. On the day preceding the attack on 
Lawrence (September 13), I went east of Lawrence, through the 
town of Franklin, with a detachment of Captain Wright's men, on a 
scout, the balance of Captain Wright's company having gone with 
Colonel Harvey. We found a large body of men crossing at the 
lower ford of the Wakarusa ; they camped that night on the bottom. 



334 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

We counted their tents to ascertain about how many there were, as 
near as possible. The next morning they commenced to advance. 
We fell back slowly through Franklin, ducking their advance-guard 
occasionally. They fired the mill at Franklin and came on, and 
when we arrived near Lawrence their advance was pressing us 
closely. The Stub Rifles, Captain Walker's men, came up and 
deployed on our riglit, and we went into position in the rifle pits 
near the head of Massachusetts Street. John Brown was there. I 
think he had <jn a reddish plush cap, which had side pieces to turn 
down. I heard him talk to some of the boys who were playing 
cards, ' that it was no time or place for that,' saying that the pro- 
slavery men would soon be there. He cautioned them to fire low, 
and talked quite awhile. At this time Walker's men had opened 
fire on the prtislavery advance, and they were falling back. 

" Just before sunset John Brown pointed out to me a stone building 
that stood south and west of where we were, and asked me to take some 
men and hold the position ready for the morrow. I called for volun- 
teers, and selected ten or twelve men. They were mostly Wright's 
men. We marched to the spot. The building was not completed ; 
no floor laid. I had boards laid so that we could fire from the window 
openings, and placed some videttes out. The balance went to sleep 
in the building. During the night I heard a rattling of sabres and a 
command to halt. I went to one of the sentinels, who was on the 
Santa Fe trail leading west towards Lecompton. I found there a 
detachment of United States troops, and conversed with the officer in 
command, gave him a detailed account of the day's doings and the 
positions of the difterent forces. He said he would take a position 
between us, and marched his men past. In the mf)rning the regulars 
were between us and the proslavery men. Yon, no doubt, recollect 
that on the disbandment of tlie proslavery men it was proposed that 
a portion of them should cross the river at Lawrence, whereupon 
several of us notified Governor Geary that we should fire on tliem 
from the buildings, and the order was changed, and they crossed at 
De Soto." 

John Brown, who was in Lawrence September 8,'soon after 
went to Topeka, and was on his way from that town to Osa- 
watomie, when the Missourians began to show themselves 
about Lawrence, September 12 or 13. The latter was the 
date of an expedition sent out from Lawrence to capture a 
fort of the Border Ruffians at Hickory Point. On the 14th, 
wliile many of the armed men of Lawrence were absent on 
this expedition, the people of the town were alarmed by the 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 335 

news "that twenty-eight hundred Missourians were march- 
ing down upon Lawrence, with drums beating and with 
eagles upon their banners." Tlie actual number reported 
by Governor Geary, who visited their camp at Franklin on 
Monday the loth, was twenty-seven hundred, and their 
leaders were General John W". Keid, David R. Atchison, B. 
F. Stringfellow, etc., — the same who had led an invasion 
three weeks before. The whole number of iighting-men in 
Lawrence that Sunday did not exceed two hundred, and 
many of them were unarmed ; but Brown was there, and 
soon made himself known. Ha was asked to take command 
of the defences of the town, and though he declined this, he 
did his whole duty. Between four and live o'clock in the 
afternoon he assembled the people in the main street, and, 
mounted on a dry-goods box in the midst of them, made 
this speech, which is reported by one who heard him : — 

"Gentlemen, — It is said there are twenty-five hundred Mis- 
sourians down at FrankUu, and that tliey will be here in two hours. 
You can see for yourselves the smoke they are making by setting fire 
to the houses in that town. Now is probably the last opportunity 
you will have of seeing a fight, so that you had better do your best. 
If they should come up and attack us, don't yell and make a great 
noise, but remain perfectly silent and still. Wait till they get within 
twenty-five yards of you ; get a good object ; be sure you see the 
hind sight of your gun, — theu fire. A great deal of powder and lead 
and very precious time is wasted by shooting too high. You had 
better aim at their legs than at their heads. In either case, be sure 
of the hind sights of your guns. It is from the neglect of this that I 
myself have so many times escaped ; for if all the bullets that have 
ever been aimed at me had hit, I should have been as full of holes as 
a riddle." 

After this exhortation, which reminds one of John Stark 
at Bunker Hill and Bennington, Brown sent a small force 
to the few defences about the town, and others ordered all 
the men who had the far-shooting Sharpe's rifle — then a new 
weapon — ^to go out upon the prairie, half a mile south, where 
by this time the invading horsemen could be seen, two miles 
off. After a halt for reconnoitring purposes, the enemy made 
an advance upon Brown's left, and came within half a mile 
of his advance guard, just as the sun was setting. Under 



336 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

cover of the dusk some approached nearer ; but the dis- 
charge of a few Sharpe's riiies and the coming of a brass 
cannon, which had been ordered up to suppjrt the riiies, 
caused the enemy (who may have been only a reconnoitring 
party) to turn and retreat; and no further attack was 
made. The stone building which Dunlop mentions was a 
stone church, still standing, on the southwest side of Law- 
rence ; and John Brown, Jr., was one of thirty or forty 
men sent out to hold that position. He is my authority 
for the statement that Brown placed men armed with 
pitchforks (for want of better weapons) in places of defence 
where they could be useful with such arms. He heai'd his 
father make the speech above cited, and says it was longer 
than reported, but the substance of it was caught and 
printed. Colonel Walker, of Lawrence, told me in 1882 
that on the 14th of September, 1856, Brown was not in 
command, " but went about with his I'ifle on his shoulder." 
In Lane's absence on an expedition the chief command fell 
to Captain Abbott, the rescuer of Branson, who was " officer 
of the day." There was little fighting, but much firing on 
both sides at long range. Walker himself went out toward 
Franklin with ten or fifteen mounted men, to reconnoitre ; 
saw tlie enemy, — two or three thousand in number, as he 
judged, — and fell back toward Lawrence, followed by two 
hundred or more of them. When these men came near 
Lawrence they were fired at by the few men who were 
there, but there was no engagement. If the main body had 
come up then, they might have captured Lawrence, in 
Colonel Walker's opinion. 

During his excursion northward, early in August, we get 
a glimpse of John Brown as he appeared to the armed 
emigrants from Massachusetts and New York. A brother 
of Brown's wounded son-in-law, on learning of the casual- 
ties at Black Jack, at once left North Elba, and joined the 
second Massachusetts company of emigrants at Buffalo. 
Brown rode into tlieir camp in Nebraska, inquiring if 
William Thompson was there, found him, and they left the 
camp together. " The Captain was riding a splendid horse, 
and was dressed in plain white summer clothing. He wore 
a large straw hat, and was closely shaven: everything 



1856. J THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 337 

about him was scrupulously clean." He made a great im- 
pression on several of the company, who, without knowing 
him, at once declared that he must be a distinguished man 
in disguise. Brown and his party then proceeded to Tabor, 
in Iowa, left the wounded man and his brother there, and 
went back to Kansas in company with General Lane and 
Colonel Walker. 

Let me make a digression here, in order to introduce 
some anecdotes which I heard from Colonel Walker con- 
cerning Captain Brown and General Lane, the two Kansas 
men Avho were always ready for lighting. Colonel Walker 
was a Pennsylvania Democrat when he settled in Kansas, a 
little earlier than John Brown went there. He has always 
lived there, except when in the military service ; and no 
man's character for truth and courage stands higher. He 
told me that he first saw Brown when he came with his sons 
in a wagon from Osawatomie to Lawrence, to help defend 
it from the Missourians in the " Wakarusa War " of ISoo. 
They were then the best-armed men he had seen in Kansas. 
There was no fighting then, but earthworks were thrown up 
near Governor Robinson's old house on Mount Oread, where 
now the State University stands ; and these old lines are 
still visible. Walker was sent by Robinson in August, 
1856, to meet General Lane, then coming on with a party 
of emigrants who had crossed Iowa and Nebraska, and to 
prevent him from being intercepted by General Richardson 
and the Missourians or the United States troops, on his 
way into Kansas with his company of armed emigrants. 
AValker rode up to the ISTemaha River, and found what he ' 
supposed was a camp of Missourians, but which turned out 
to be John Brown, with his sick son Owen and a few men, 
working their way along northward to where he was to 
leave Owen at Tabor, in Iowa. Brown and Walker then 
we-nt northward together until they came near where Lane 
was. When Walker told Lane that he must not come into 
Kansas with his emigrants, for if he did he would certainly 
be arrested by the United States troops. Lane said : " Then 
I will shoot myself to-night ; for I have told the Kansas 
people that I am coming back, and I have told these emi- 

22 



338 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

grants that I am going in \vk.h. them ; if I give it up now it 
will be said that I deserted them, and there Avill be no way 
of disproving it. I must go back into Kansas." 

Walker then told Laae that he must disguise himself. 
" So we tried nitrate of silver on his face, but it would not 
change him ; and then we tried putting old clothes on him ; 
but the worse clothes we put on, the more like Jim Lane 
he looked." Then Walker said he would take him back 
under escort, with Brown's helj) ; and they started so, with 
twenty or thirty men, and Brown among them. When 
they camped for the night, Brown, according to his custom, 
went away to sleep by himself ; and Walker describes him 
as sitting bolt upright on his saddle, with his back against 
a tree, his horse " lariated " to the saddle-peak, and Brown 
asleep with his rifle across his knees. At early dawn 
Walker went up to waken Brown, and as he touched him 
on the shoulder Brown sprang up "quick as a cat," lev- 
elled, cocked, and discharged his piece, which Walker 
threw up with his hand in time to escape death ; but the 
bullet grazed his shoulder. "That shows how quick he 
was ; but he was frightened ^afterward, when he saw it was 
I he had fired at." Then, said Walker, "As we rode along 
together. Brown was in a sort of study ; and I said to him, 
' Captain Brown, I would n't have your thoughts for any- 
thing in the world.' Brown said, 'I suppose you are think- 
ing about the Pottawatomie affair.' Said I, 'Yes.' Then 
he stopped and looked at me, and said, ' Captain Walker, I 
saw that whole thing, but I did not strike a blow, I take 
the responsibility of it : but there were men who advised 
doing it, and afterward failed to justify it,' " — meaning, 
as Walker supposed. Lane and Robinson. Walker now 
believes Brown, and cannot think that Townsley's state- 
ment about Brown's shooting Doyle through the head is 
correct ; " for Brown would never tell me what was not 
true, and would not deny to me anything he had really 
done." 

In respect to Governor Geary's friendly feeling toward 
Brown, Walker said that one morning, after a deed of Brown 
which had made much noise, Geary sent a note to Walker, 
as he was drilling his men out on the field, telling him to get 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 339 

word to Brown that a warrant was out against liim, which 
nmst be served, and that Brown must get away. Walker saw 
a man looking on whom he had before seen in Brown's camp ; 
he took him one side, showed him Geary's note, and told him 
to find and warn Brown. Not long after came an orderly 
from Governor Geary with a warrant against Brown, which 
Walker must serve with his posse. " Take him dead or 
alive ; and for this I shall hold you, Captain Walkei", per- 
sonally responsible," was the order. Walker took the war- 
rant and made search for Brown ; but of course he had 
gone. At that time Brown's camp was on the Wakarusa, 
eight or ten miles from Lawrence. The man who warned 
Brown, Walker afterwards found, was James Montgomery, 
who succeeded to the reijutation of Brown as a good fighter 
in southern Kansas. 

Soon after Governor Geary came to Kansas, he persuaded 
Walker to become a deputy marshal of the United States, 
and to summon jurymen, serve processes, and make arrests. 
At first Walker refused, saying there were thirty-Seven in- 
dictments against himself found by the prosjavery grand- 
jury ; and he feared he should be arrested if he undertook 
to serve warrants on other men. It was finally agreed tliat 
the District Attorney should refuse to prosecute {nol. jjros.) 
these indictments, and then Walker should be sworn in as 
a deputy mai'shal of the United States, and should use his 
armed band of Free-State men as his posse in making arrests. 
Before the matter was thus settled, Governor Geary came 
bo Lawrence from Lecompton one day, and sent word that 
he would dine at Walker's house ; but, as it happened, that 
very day the other United States Marshal with a posse of 
mounted proslavery men came into Lawrence to arrest 
Walker, went to his house, and was fired upon there by the 
people inside, — Walker being on the street with Governor 
Geary at the time. His little boy came running up to him in 
the street, and said before the Governor, " Mother says the 
Marshal and his men are surrounding the house and firing; 
and you must not come home." Geary turned white with 
anger, and said, " You 're mistaken, boy ; they are firing at 
birds." But he found it was the Marshal, and went back at 
once to Lecompton and put a stop to such proceedings. Soon 



340 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

after, Walker was sworn in ; and his first act was to svim- 
mon a jury of Free-State men. He had his pocket full of 
warrants against Free-State men, some of which he served 
and some he would not serve. Several were against John 
Eitchie, with whom Walker often spent the night ; when 
Ritchie, who was a brave Free-State soldier, would say to 
him: "Walker, I like you as well as any man in Kansas; 
but if you try to serve your warrants on me, by God, I '11 
kill you ! " "I never did try," said Walker ; " but by and 
by another deputy — a Free-State man — had the warrants 
given him to serve, and thought he must try it ; he did so, 
and Eitchie shot him." 

It was probably upon the hint which Walker gave through 
Montgomery, that John Brown left Kansas in 1856, pursued 
by the United States troops. He started for northern Kan- 
sas before the 20th of September, journeying with his four 
sons and with a fugitive slave, whom he picked up on the 
way. The old hero was sick, as he often was, and travelled 
slowly: appearing to be a land-surveyor on a journey. He 
had a light w-agon in which he rode, with his surve^'or's in- 
struments ostentatiously in sight ; and inside, covered up in 
a blanket, was the fugitive slave. Sometimes he pitched 
his camp at night near the dragoons who were ordered to 
arrest him, but who little suspected that the formidable 
fighter was so near them in the guise of a feeble old man. 
A spy had notified the dragoons that Brown was on the road, 
and they were on the watch for him, — five hundred mounted 
men, as one of his sons told me, with four cannon. Early 
in the morning two of the sons, John and Jason, rose early 
and made a long circuit round the camp, while their father, 
ill and weak, followed on later in the day. It was proposed 
to carry him along this dangerous part of his journey con- 
cealed in the wagon, as his fugitive slave was. "Xo," said 
Brown, who scorned to hide himself ; " I may as well die by 
the enemy as be jolted to death in the wagon." At Ply- 
mouth, not far from the Nebraska border, Eedpath, in one 
of his journeys through the Territory, found him lying ill 
in a log hut, while his four sons were camped near by. A 
few hours after, the dragoons, hearing he was so near them, 
came up to arrest him ; but he had crossed the border into 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED, 341 

i^Tebraska, and was out of their reach. He went forward 
till he came to Tabor in Iowa, not far northeast of Nebraska 
City, and there remained among friends for two weeks in 
early October. In the latter part of that month he reached 
Chicago, and made himself known to the National Kansas 
Committee, which then had headquarters in that city.^ Af- 
terward he travelled eastward, to Ohio, to Peterboro', N. Y., 
where he visited his friend Gerrit Smith ; to Albany and 
Springfield, and finally to Boston, where I first saw him in 
the early part of January, 1857. 

That Brown was in Chicago as early as October 25 will 
be seen by the two following letters, — the first by General 
J. D. Webster, then a member of the National Kansas Com- 
mittee, and the other by jNIr. Horace White, its assistant 
secretary : — 

National Kansas Committee Eooms, 
Chicago, Oct. 25, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — We have requested Captain Brown to join you and 
give you the benefit of his counsel in reference to the safe transporta- 
tion of your freight.^ Colonel Dickey will also be al)le to assist you. 
We hope every precaution will be taken. Captain Brown says the 
immediate introduction of the supplies is not of much consequence 
compared to the danger of losing them. We trust your foresiglit and 

1 On his way from Kansas to Chicago he passed one of his sons, who 
was going to join his father in Kansas, as appears by this letter : — 

St. Charles, Iowa, Oct. 30, 1856. 
Dear Mother, Brothers, and Sisters, — I sent j'ou a draft for thirty dollars a few 
days ago in a sheet of paper with a very few words on it, — they being all I had time to 
write tlien. We are well and in fine spirits, besides being in good companj'. We are in 
the company of a train of Kansas teams loaded with Sharpe's rifles and cannon. I heard 
a report that father had gone East. We travel very slow ; you can write to us at Tabor. 
On our way we saw Gerrit Smith, F. Douglass, and other old friends. We have each a 
Sharpe's rifle. Oliver, your watch was all that saved us. 1 want you to write and let 
us know how you get along. No more now. 

Yours truly, Watson Brown. 

From this it would seem that Oliver Brown, the youngest son, had gone 
back to North Elba in advance of his father. Watson also turned hack 
and joined his father at Chicago, and then returned home to the Adiron- 
dacs, where I .saw him in the summer of 1857. 

2 This "freight" included the two hundred rifles sent forward in Sep-f 
tember by the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, and afterward carried by 
Brown to Virginia when he attacked Harper's Ferry. 



342 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

discretion will prevent any loss, and bo of essential aid to tlie good 
cause. 

Yours tiuly, J. D. Webster. 

Dk. J. P. Root. 

Office National Kansas Committee, 
Chicago, Oct. 26, 1856. 
Captain Brown, — We expect Mr. Arny, our general agent, just 
from Kansas, to be in to-morrow morning. He has been in the 
Territory particularly to ascertain tlie condition of certain aflairs for 
our information. I know lie M'ill very much regret not liaving seen 
you. If it is not absolutely essential for you to go on to-niglit, I 
would recommend ycju to wait and see him. I siiall confer witli 
Colonel Dicl^ey on this point. Kev. Theodore Parker, of Boston, is 
at the Briggs House, and wishes very much to see you. 
Yours truly, 

Horace White, Assist. Sec, etc. 
P. S. If you wish one or two of tliose rilles,^ please call at our 
office between three and live this afternoon, or between seven and 
eight this evening. 

Ill his testimoii}^ before Senator Mason's investigating 
committee in January, 1860, Mr. White thus explained the 
alhisiou to rifles in the letter just cited : " Our coinniitteo 
sent John Brown twenty-live navy revolvers of Colt's manu- 
facture, in August, 1856, by Mr. Arny, our agent ; but they 
never reached him. They were sent to Lawrence and stored 
there for a time, subject to Brown's order ; but he did not 
come forward to claim them, and they -were loaned to a mili- 
tary compan}^ in Lawrence called the 'Stubs;' but Brown 
never afterward appeared to claim them. He told rae that 
the reason was, he had had so much trouble and fuss and 
difficulty with the people of Lawrence, that he never would 
go there again to claim anything. I gave no other arms to 
Brown himself, but gave rifles to two of his sons. After all 
the arms of the committee had been distributed in Kansas, 
or all but two or three, Mr. Brown made his appearance at 
the committee-rooms with two of his sons in October, 1856. 
One of them was "Watson, and the other, I think, was Owen 
Brown. We had three or four rifles left, and I gave one to 

1 These wore perhaps from the Mnssaehusetts stock of rifles, hnt most 
likclv beloii''ed to another lot which was tlien on its wav to Kansas. 



1856.] THE KANSAS STRUGGLE CONTINUED. 343 

each of those sous ; and, as they were very poorly clad, I 
went down to a fur store in Chicago and purchased each of 
them a pair of fur gloves and fur overshoes and caps." Mr. 
White also fitted out Captain Brown with a new suit of 
clothes, in which he made his visits that winter to his New 
England friends, who had begun to take a strong interest in 
his course, as the following note from the Emigrant Aid 
Office in Boston sufficiently indicates : — 

BusTON, Sept. 22, 1856. 

No. 3 Winter Street. 
John Bkown, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — The Messrs. Chapiu, who keep the Massasoit House 
in Spriugfield, in this State, wish to give you fifty or one hundred 
dollars, as a testimonial of their admiration of your brave conduct 
during the war. Will you write to them, stating how they can 
send you the money? Call upon Mr. S. N. Simpson, of Lawrence. 
He vvih tell you who I am. 

Yours truly, 

Charles H. Branscomb. 

Indeed, at this time Brown had the confidence of all 
lovers of liberty. 

Note. — While these events were occurring in Kansas, Congress was 
in session at Wasliington, adjourning Aug. 30, 1856. The Senate was 
controlled by Senator Mason and his slaveholding associates, wlio were 
obediently followed by Cass, Douglass, and the other Northern " dough- 
faces," as John Randolph called such persons. The House, under the lead 
of the Sjieaker, — General Banks, of Massachusetts, — was on the side of 
freedom, and voted that the Territorial laws of Kansas were oppressive ; 
it also refused for some weeks to pass the Army Bill, except with a clause 
forbidding the "dough-face" President Pierce to use the army against 
the freemen of Kansas. Finally, a few Northern men yielded, and the bill 
passed the House as Mason and Douglass forced it through the Senate (Aug. 
30, 1856). The American news from Kansas and Washington, " through 
some certain strainers well refined," reached London in a damaged state ; 
for Lord JLalmesbury wrote in his diar}', Sept. 6, 1856: " Civil war has 
broken out in the United States between the Abolitionists and the proslav- 
ery party, and a gi-eat deal of blood has been already shed. The Govern- 
ment refused to take part with either side, upon which the slave-party in 
Congress would not vote the supplies for the army, which accordingly must 
be disbanded." As this peer bad been Foreign Secretary, he might have 
been supposed to know something about America ; but he wi-ites in 1865, 
after the fighting around Richmond, that Grant and Sheridan "drove Lee 
into Pittsburg." Such is English material for American liistoiT I 



'344 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1854. 



CHAPTER XI. 

JOHN BROWN AND THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 

'T^HE committees appointed from 1854 to 1859 to attend 
-*- to Kansas and its affairs were legion, and as various in 
kind as possible. The Boston Emigrant Aid Company was 
the first of these committees ; next the Free-State men of 
Lawrence formed a singular secret committee in 1855, to 
protect themselves from the Border Ruffians ; and of this 
the chief members were General Lane and Charles Robin- 
son. A penitent or treacherous member, who had been 
admitted to this secret committee, disclosed what he said 
were its oaths and signs ; but there was much exaggeration 
in what Dr. Francis swore to before the next Kansas com- 
mittee, — that of Congress, sent out in the spring of 1856. 
Some parts of his testimony may here be cited to show what 
he wished to have us believe : — 

THE KANSAS REGULATORS.* 

"Offers were made to me by various persons to introduce me to 
a secret political organization. The only name I ever received as 
a member of the lodge was Kansas Regulators. ... I went with 

^ John Brown, Jr., says : I belonged to this secret organization, though 
I cannot say it had this name : it seems to me the name was " Kansas 
Defenders." I was initiated by Lane himself, in a room of Garvey's Hotel 
at Topeka, in the spring of 1856, at the time of the first assembling of the 
legislature under the Topeka Constitution. The oath, as stated by Dr. 
Francis, is the same substantially as administered by Lane to me. I do 
not think we were required by our oath to resist United States authorities 
in attempts to enforce the bogus laws, though it was understood by us that 
we might be driven to do so, when we icnuld so resist, rather tlian tamely 
submit. Our badge was a nan-ow black riljbon, from six to eight inches 
long, tied in tlie button-hole of tiie shirt collar. 



1855.1 THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 345 

Colonel Lane to the law-office of John Hutchinson, as I afterward 
found out. Governor Reeder did not go into the room where I was 
initiated. Dr. Robinson was standing just before the door with a 
lady, I should think. Colonel Lane asked hiin to leave the lady and 
go into the office with us. Robinson rather objected at first, but 
finally came in with us, and said he would explain the nature of the 
organization he was about to initiate me into. The substance of 
the explanation was, that Kansas was a beautiful country and well 
adapted to freedom, and the best Territory in the world for the 
friends of freedom to operate on, — more especially for those who were 
engaged in the free white State cause. After proceeding in that 
strain for a while, he asked me if I was willing to pledge my word 
and honor that I would keep secret what T saw there, and whom I 
saw there, provided he would pledge his word and honor that there 
was noching which would interfere with my duties as a citizen, or that 
was disloyal in any respect." 

The oath was this : — 

" I furthermore promise and swear that T will at all times and 
under all circumstances bear upon my person a weapon of death ; 
that I will at all times and under all circumstances keep in my house 
at least one gun, with a full supply of ammunition ; that I will at 
all times and under all circumstances, when 1 see the sign of distress 
given, rush to the assistance of the person giving it, where there is 
a greater probability of saving his life than of losing my own. I 
furthermore promise and swear that I will, to the utmost of my 
power, oppose the laws of the so-called Kansas Legislature ; and 
tliat when I Iiear the words of danger given I will repair to the place 
where the daugei- is. . . . 

"... The regalia was this : The private members wore a black 
ribbon tied upon their shirt- bosoms ; the colonel wore a red sash; 
the lieutenant-colonel a green sash, the major a blue sash, the adju- 
tant a black sash, the captains white sashes, the lieutenants yellow 
sashes, the orderly sergeant a very broad black ribbon upon his 
shirt-bosom. . . . Colonel Lane wore the red sash, and some one 
else, but I am not certain who it was. I do not recollect seeing any 
body with a green sash. Dr. Robinson had a beautiful sash on, 
looking like a blue and red one jt»ined together, trimmed with gold 
lace. I was tohl it denoted some higher office than colonel ; but I 
. did not learn what it was. . . . 

" In regard to the laws which were to be resisted, I underst<jod 
fi-om Dr. Robinson and Colonel Lane that they were the laws of 
the late Territorial Legislature. Colonel Lane said : ' We will not- 



346 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1855. 

submit to any laws passed by that Legislature ; aud we are mak- 
ing preparations to place in the hands of every Free-State man a 
Sharpe's rifle and a brace of Colt's revolvers ; and, if need be, we 
will resist even the United States troops if they attempt to enforce 
those laws.' He also stated at the same time that an attack had 
been anticipated on the town of Lawrence the day before, and that 
lie saw five hundred men there, at their business in the streets, 
armed. . . . Dr. Robinson and Col. Lane told me they expected 
to form lodges or councils in every county in the Territory. They 
proclaimed me a Kansas Regulator; and that was all the name 
I learned for a member of the organization ; and they gave me 
authority to institute lodges, and conferred up(m me a sort of brevet 
rank of captain. This was at the time I was initiated. During the 
first Lawrence war they sent me a commission as captain, which I 
never used." 

A Free-State man, Mr. G. P. Lowrey, testified thus: — 

"... I have no distinct recollection of all the oath, but T know 
Dr. Francis testifies to matters as being in the oath wliich were not 
contained in it. The oath required us to keep fire-arms and ammu- 
niti(m ; to use all lawful and honorable means to make Kansas a fi'ee 
State ; to wear at all times up(ni our persons a weapon of death ; 
and I think to go to the assistance of a brother when the probability 
of saving his life vA-as greater than of losing our own. I d<> w>t 
recollect anything in the oath whieh required us to deal with Free- 
State men in preference to proslavery men, or to wear up<m the per- 
son at all times the insignia of the order, or to obey at all times the 
orders of superior officers even unto death." 

That Brown had something to do with both these com- 
mittees is probable, — almost certain. He was at times in 
close relations with the officers of the Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, and, as we have seen, was a small stockholder there- 
in. There is no record that he was ever initiated in the 
secret order of Robinson and Lane ; but it has been asserted 
that he executed the five men on the 24th of May in accord- 
ance with a decree of these " Regulators." I have seen no 
good evidence of this, but have no doubt that some of the 
" Regulators " counselled such acts aud justified them when 
done. The committees under which Brown chiefly acted 
however, when he would connect liimself Avitli any such 
organizations at all, were the National Kansas Committee, 



1857.] ' THE KANSAS COilMITTEES. 347 

which was formed in Buffalo in the summer of 1856, and 
the State Kansas Committee of Massachusetts, formed about 
the same time, but continuing much longer in its work. 
The creation of such unofficial bodies for public service was 
natural enough, and in accord with a national custom. The 
■ people of the Xorth had resolved that Kansas should be con- 
trolled by freemen, and that slavery should never be toler- 
ated there. In pursuance of this resolution, they formed 
tliese societies and committees to colonize Kansas with 
Xorthern men, who would never vote to establish slavery ; 
and by one of these organizations, — the Xew England 
Emigrant Aid Company, — a portion of Kansas was in fact 
colonized during the years 1854 and 1855. At that time I 
was in college, and so occupied with my private affairs that, 
except to vote and read the newspapers, I took little inter- 
est in those of the public. But upon leaving college and 
going to reside in Concord in 1855, I became more actively 
concerned in regard to the political situation, and early took 
up the opinion that the battle between the JS^orth and the 
South was first to be fought in Kansas. In the spring of 1856 
one of my brothers became a Kansas colonist. Soon after, 
the outrages of the Missouri invaders of Kansas grew so fre- 
quent and alarming that the indignation of Massachusetts 
and of the whole North was roused, and further action be- 
gan to be taken in this form. " Kansas committees " were 
organized in towns, counties, and States, and very soon a 
national committee, among the members of which were 
Abraham Lincoln, Gerrit Smith, and Dr. S. G. Howe. Mr. 
Lincoln never acted, so far as I know ; but the committee 
did much work for a year, and raised thousands of dollars 
to colonize towns and support armed colonists in Kansas. 
Between May, 1856, and January, 1857, I passed through 
all the grades of these Kansas committees, — beginning in 
June, 1856, as secretary of the Concord town committee ; 
then in July helping to organize a county committee for 
Middlesex, of which I was secretary ; then serving as secre- 
tary to the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, from 
December, 1856, until the committee dissolved in 1858-59 ; 
and finally serving upon the National Committee at its last 
meeting, in January, 1857, as proxy for Dr. Howe. 



348 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857- 

What a few years later tlie Sanitary Commission did for 
the Union armies as a whole, these committees of 1856-57 did 
for the pioneers of Kansas. Something more was done, too ; 
for they supplied rifles, cartridges, and cannon to the defend- 
ers of freedom in Kansas, — a work which the Sanitary Cou^- 
mission could leave to the jSTational Government. -The first 
large sum of money raised to buy arms for Kansas was that 
contributed in Boston during the spring of 1855, — some 
thousands of dollars, which were expended in the purchase 
of Sharpe's rifles. The Faneuil Hall Committee, of Bos- 
ton, organized in May, 185G, pledged itself to raise money 
for use '' in a strictly lawful manner " in Kansas ; but most 
of the other committees were not so scrupulous, and gave 
their money freely to arm the colonists who went out to 
defend the Free-State cause. The National Kansas Com- 
mittee, which had its headquarters at Chicago, had received 
and forwarded many of these arms ; but some members of 
this committee soon became distrustful of Captain Brown, 
who was too radical for them. A general meeting of this 
National Committee, which was made up of one or more 
members from each free State, assembled in New York on 
the 23d of January, 1857. At this meeting, which took 
place at the Astor House, and remained in session two days, 
Captain Brown was present, urging his plan to organize a 
company of mounted rangers for service in Kansas and Mis- 
souri. I was there as a delegate from Massachusetts, and 
caused a resolution to be introduced, transferring the cus- 
tody of two hundred Massachusetts rifles to our own State 
committee. This was passed without much o^iposition ; 
but another resolution, introduced I think by Mr. Newton, 
the delegate from Vermont, and appropriating five tliousand 
or ten thousand dollars to Captain Brown for his special 
purposes, was vehemently opposed by Mr. Henry B. Hurd, 
of Chicago, and a few others, — among them Mr. Arny, of 
Illinois, who had taken Abraham Lincoln's place on the 
committee. The reasons given by these gentlemen were 
that Captain Brown was so ultra and violent that he would 
use the money, if voted, in ways which the committee 
would not sanction ; and I remember that Mr. Hurd, when 
Captain Brown had withdrawn, urged this argument very 



L. 



1857.1 THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 349 

earnestly. The views of the more radical Eastern members 
prevailed however, and the money was voted, although only 
one hundred and fifty dollars of it was ever paid over to 
Captain Brown. 

The friends of Kansas in Massachusetts, and particularly 
the vState Kansas Committee (which grew out of the Faneuil 
Hall Committee and some others appointed in the Massachu- 
setts counties), had no hesitation in buying rifles and ammu- 
nition, and did, in fact, buy the rifles which John Brown 
carried to Harper's Ferry. This State committee, and its 
auxiliaries in the towns and counties, raised throughout 
Massachusetts, during 1856, nearly one hundred thousand 
dollars in money and supplies, which were sent to the Kan- 
sas people. Some towns, Concord for example, raised in 
proportion to their population much more than this ; for it 
was estimated that if all Massachusetts had contributed as 
freely as Concord, the amount raised in the State would 
have been nearly a million dollars. Personally, I under- 
took to canvass Middlesex County that summer and autumn, 
and visited more than half the towns to appoint committees, 
hold meetings, or solicit subscriptions. Enough was sub- 
scribed, in Massachusetts and the other Northern States, to 
carry our colonists in Kansas through their worst year ; and 
but for these supplies of money, arms, and clothing, it is 
quite possible they would have been driven out or con- 
quered by the Missourians, the United States troops, and 
their other enemies.'' 

1 The records of the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, including its 
large correspondence, were in my possession for a few years as secretary. 
Before the attack on Harper's Ferry, or soon after, I transferred them to 
the custody of the chairman of the committee, George L. Stearns, and 
some of them have since been destroyed. Tliey contained much historical 
information and some curious revelations concerning political movements in 
those years. Tliey will also confirm the statements made in the "Atlantic 
Monthly " in 1872, concerning the ownership of the arms carried by Bi-own 
to Virginia. The Massachusetts Committee voted theiri to John Brown as 
its agent in 1857, and though they were nominally reclaimed in 1858, they 
were never out of his custody till cajitured in Maryland. They liad ceased 
to be the property of the committee, except in name, before the corres- 
pondence of May, 1858 (printed in Senator Mason's Report of 1860, pp. 
176, 177), in which Mr. Stearns, the real owner of the arms, warned 



350 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

Mr. Stearns, before Senator INIason's committee in 1860, 
gave this account of the State committee : — 

" In the spring of 1856 I went to the Boston Comnuttee for the 
relief of sufferers in Kansas, and offered my services. I worked for 
them until June of that year; and then being willing to devote all my 
time to the cause, I was made chairman of tlie Kansas State Com- 
mittee of Massachusetts, which took the place of the first-named com- 
mittee, and continued the woi-k throughout the State. In five months, 
including August and December of that year (1850), I raised, through 
my agents, about $48,000 in money; and in the same time my wife 
commenced the formation of societies for contributions of clothing, 
which resulted in sending from $20,000 to $30,000 more, in supplies 
of various kinds. In January, 1857, our work was stopped, by ad- 
vices from Kansas that no more contributions were needed except 
for defence. If we had not been thus stopped, our arrangements 
then made would have enabled us to have collected $100,000 in the 
next six months. Soon after our State committee had commenced 
work, — I think in August, 1856, — a messenger from Kansas, 
who came through Iowa (for the Missouri Kiver was then closed by 
the Missouriaus to all Free-State travellers), came to us asking 
earnestly for arms and ammimitifni fur defence of the Free-State 
party. Our committee met the next day, and immediately voted to 
send two hundred Sharpe's rifles, and the necessary quantity of ammu- 
nition, — which was procured and sent to the National Kansas Com- 

Brown not to use them for any other purpose than the defence of Kansas, 
"and to hold them subject to my order as chairman of the committee." 
On the 20th of May, 1858, Mr. Stearns wrote thus to Colonel Higginson, 
then cognizant of Brown's designs, but not a member of the Kansas Com- 
mittee : " I have felt obliged, for reasons that cannot be written, to recall 

the arms committed to B 's custody. We are all agreed on that jioint; 

and if you come to Boston, I think we can convince you that it is for the 
best." That this recall was only nominal appears from a memorandum 
made by Higginson when he did " come to Boston " early in June. " I 
found," he says, "that the Kansas Committee had put some five hundred 
dollars in gold into Brown's hands, and all the arms, with only the under- 
standing that he should go to Kansas, and then be left to his own discre- 
tion." hi fact, no member of the committee who was consulted ever 
suggested the actual recall of the arms from Brown, well knowing that he 
w'ould not give them up unless he pleased. Nor, according to my recol- 
lection, did any member who gave advice (probably only Mr. Stearns, Dr. 
Howe, and myself, who hail long been the three acting members of a com- 
mittee practically defunct, were consulted) desire to have Brown surrender 
them. 



1857.1 THE liANSAS COMMITTEES. 351 

mittee at Chicago, to be by them forwarded through Iowa to Kansas. 
From some cause, which I have never heard explained, these arms 
were delayed in Iowa ; and in November or December of that year 
we directed an agent to proceed to Iowa at our charge, and take 
possession of them as our property. Early in January, 1857, John 
Brown, of whom I had heard, but had not seen, came to Boston and 
was introduced to me by ouo of our Kansas agents ; and after repeated 
conferences with him, being strongly im})ressed with his sagacity, 
courage, and stern integrity, I, through a vote of our committee, 
made him our agent to receive and hold these arms and the ammu- 
nition, for the defence of Kansas, appropriating $500 to pay his 
expenses. Subsequently, in April of that year, we authorized him 
to sell one hundred rifles, if expedient, and voted $500 more to 
enable him to proceed to Kansas with his armament. About this 
time, on his representing that the force to be organized in Kansas 
ought to be provided with revolvers, I authorized him to purchase 
two hundred from the Massachusetts Arms Company, and when they 
vt^ere delivered to him in Iowa, paid for them from my own funds ; 
the amount was $1,300. At the same time I gave him, by a letter 
of credit, authority to draw on me at sight for $7,000 in sums as 
it might be wanted, for the subsistence of one hundred men, pro- 
vided that it should be necessary at any time to call that num- 
ber into the field for active service in the defence t)f Kansas, in 
1857. As the exigency contemplated did not occur, no money was 
drawn under it, and the letter was subsequently returned to me. 
Besides these transactions, which were for specific purposes, I have 
given him money from time to time, — how mucli I do not know, as I 
never keep any account of my personal expenses, or of mcraey I give 
to others ; it is all charged to my private account as paid me. I 
should think it might amount to, say, from $1,500 to $2,000. In 
addition to what I have before stated, I raised money and sent an 
iigent to Kansas to aid the Free-State party in the Lecompton 
election, and again for the election of 1858. 

" Question. Was it at Brown's request that you put him in pos- 
session of those arms in January, 1857 f 

" Answer. No, sir ; but because we needed an agent to secure 
tViem. They were left in Iowa, and under circumstances that made 
it dnnlitful whether they would not be lost entirely ; and we put them 
into his hands because it was necessary to have some agent to pro- 
ceed there and reclaim them from the hands they were in, and take 
proper care of them." 

The operations of the jSTational Kansas Committee (to 
which Gerrit Smith contribiited one thousand dollars a 



352 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

month during the summer and autumn of 1856) were active 
and efficient for a time.^ 

This committee, through its assistant-secretary Horace 
Wliite, reported, Jan. 25, 1857, at New York, as follows : 

" There have been forwarded by this committee about two thousand 
oraigrauts. These have gone exclusively by the land route of Iowa 
and Xel)raska. The committee have expended between $20,000 aud 
$30,000 in provisions and groceries for the needy settlers. These sup- 
plies have been purchased mostly in Western Missouri, where food 
is cheap and abundant. There were also forwarded prior to the 1st 
of December about four hundred boxes of clothing, valued at $60,000. 
The receipts in money have been as follows, classified by States : 

Massachusetts 126,107.17 

New York 33,707.39 

Illinois 8,882.00 

Ohio 2,709.41 

Connecticut 3,182.13 

Wisconsin 3,054.35 

Michigan 2,519.15 

Pennsylvania 1,360.19 

Indiana 1,349.20 

Vermont 956.25 

Rhode Lsland 643.37 

New Hampshire 138.00 

Iowa 313.85 

Minnesota 10.00 

New Jersey 254.00 

The Slave States 10.00 

Unknown 10.00 

1 The following were the names of its members : — 

Dr. Samuel Cabot, Jr., ) Boston, S. S. Barnard, Detroit, Mich. 

Dr. S. G. Howe, J Mass. J. H. Tweedy, Milwaukee, Wis. 

B. B. Newton, St. Albans, Vt. W. Penn Clark, Iowa City.Towa. 
Governor W. \Y. Hoppin, Providence, R. I. F. A. Hunt, St. Louis, Mo. 

W. H Russell, New Haven, Conn. A. H. Reeder, Kansas. 

Thaddeus Hyatt, New York City. S. W. Eldridge, Kansas. 

Alexander Gordon, Pittsburgh, Pa. J.D.Webster, ■\ 

W. H Stanley, Cleveland, Ohio. H. B. Hurd, I pj^jpa,,,, 

John W. Wri-lit, Logansport, Ind. G. W. Dole, J " 

W. F. M. Amy, Bloomington, 111. J. Y. Se.aniraon, y 

Officers. 
Thaddeus Hyatt, President, N. Y. City. Eli Thayer, Arient for Organization of States, 
J. D. Wel)Ster, Vice-President, Chicago. Worcester, Mass. 

n. B Hurd, Secretary, Chicago. Edward Daniels, Agent of Emigration, Chi- 

Horace White, Assistant Secretary, Chicago. cago. 
G. W. Dole, Treasurer, Chicago. E. B. Whitman, General Agent, Lawrence, 



il 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 353 

"The New York 'Tribune' Fuud and Gerrit Smith's donations 
are inehided in the amount from New York. Gerrit Smith has paid 
in $10,000. These accounts do not indicate the entire amount con- 
tributed for the Free-State cause by the various Northern States. 
Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio have given liberally through 
State organizations. Massachusetts has been the recipient of dona- 
tions fiom other States, and has herself contributed largely without 
the intervention of the National Committee. 

" Of clothing, our committee have received seven hundred and 
sixty-three packages, valued at $110,000, and have incurred an 
expense on the same, up to the present date, of $4,108.79. 

" I have prepared a schedule exhibiting the receipts of clothing 
from each of th'e States by towns. The following are the totals re- 
ceived from each of the States in the order of their precedence : — 

Packages. 

Massachusetts 310 

New York 134 

Illinois 96 

Ohio . . . . o 51 

Michigan 26 

Wisconsin 25 

New Hampshire 8 

Connecticut - 6 

Pennsylvania 6 

Rhode Island 5 

Vermont 4 

Indiana 2 

Unknown 89 

Total 762 

" It is proper to state that contributions from some of the New 
England States were forwarded to the Boston and Massachusetts 
State Relief committees, and by them forwarded to us at Chicago, 
and also, without our intervention, to the Territory direct. Thus, for 
example, — Maine, which has very liberally contributed, her popu- 
lation and resources considered, does not appear on my list, her 
donations being included in the list of packages forwarded by Dr. 
Cabot. The State of Iowa should also receive credit for large con- 
tributions in clothinjr, grain, provisions, and money presented to the 
conductors of our diflFerent overland companies of emigrants." 

Mr. Redpath, who reported this meeting of the rommittee 
at Ne.Av York, said at the time : *' At least $250,000, in cash 
and clothing, have been contributed by the Republicans of 

23 



354 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

tlie North in various ways for the relief and protection 
of their brethren in Kansas." Of this sum, not less than 
$100,000 came from the single State of Massachusetts ; ^ and 
the whole amount of money alone raised there was more 
than $G0,000, of which at least $20,000 was paid for the 
purchase and forwarding of arms to the Free-State men. 
Yet of all these supplies only a few rifles and a few hun- 
dred dollars in money went into the hands of John Brown 
and his men in 185G. He sought to obtain a greater share 
in 1857, when, during the winter and spring, he was busily 
engaged in etforts to raise money enough to arm and equip 
a hundred mounted men for service in Kansas and Missouri, 
but without much success. Although the National Com- 
mittee at its Astor House meeting voted him an appropria- 
tion of five thousand dollars, he received nothing under this 
vote except one hundred and fifty dollars, and that not until 
the summer of 1857. The money voted him by the Massa- 
chusetts Committee about the same time was soon exhausted, 
and so were the small collections he had made in New Eng- 
land from January to April, 1857. The efforts made for 
legislative appropriations in Massachusetts, New York, and 
other Northern States in aid of the Kansas colonists all 
failed. Brown had labored in person for such an appropria- 
tion in Massachusetts, going before the joint committee of 
the legislature in the State House at Boston, on the 18th 



1 Mr. White (who lias since been editor of the " Chicago Tribune," and 
connected vith the " Evening Post" and other journals in New York) said 
at the close of his report, Jan. 26, 1857 : "I desire to bring before your 
notice the remarkable services rendered by Dr. Samuel Cabot, Jr., of Bos- 
ton, from whom we received directly and indirectly over two hundred and 
fifty boxes of clothing within the short space of two months. Let us not 
forget, however, that it is to women almost solely that the people of Kan- 
sas are indebted for this invaluable aid. Everywhere they liave been the 
most devoted and untiring friends of freedom. It is impossible to notice 
all who deserve especial mention ; but I mi'Jtht specify the young ladies of 
the Oread Institute, at Worcester, Mass., who contributed forty-two water- 
proof overcoats for the ' Stubs ' of Lawrence ; the ladies of Norwalk, Ohio, 
who furnished one hundred new bed-comforters ; Mrs. Captain Cutter, of 
Warren, Mass., Mrs. Dr. Cabot, of Boston, Mass., Mrs. H. L. Hibbard, of 
Cliicago, and Mrs. H. M. T. Cutler, of Dwight, 111., who have been partic 
ularly active in organizing the elforts of the ladies of the North." 



1856] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 355 

of February, and giving his testimony as an eye-witness of 
what had happened in Kansas the year before. 

With this preliminary exphmation, I may now give some 
correspondence of these committees with Brown and others, 
beginning with a letter sent by the Massachusetts Kansas 
Committee, before they saw Brown, to the late Senator 
Grimes, of Iowa, — then Governor of that State. 

State Kansas Aid Committee Rooms, 
Boston, Dec. 20, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 16th has becti received, and we 
are glad to find that the iinportauce of State action in regard to Kan- 
sas is appreciated in Iowa as well as here. The first question seems 
to he, Is such action really needed ? And I will state what I believe 
to be substantially the views of this committee, who are now labor- 
ing to obtain an apjtropriation from our legislature. 

There can be no doubt that the measures of which you speak (the 
purchase of land, erecti<ni of mills, etc.) could not well be engaged in 
by a State ; ;uid certainly no grant for tliat purpose could be obtained 
here. But although present destitution may be relieved in Kansas, 
it is by no means certain that there will not be great suffering there 
in the spring, before any crops can be raised, — especially if for any 
cause business should not be active. Then who can be sure that the 
scenes of last summer will not be acted again ? True, tilings look 
better ; but the experience of the past ought to teach us to prepare 
for the future. But even if things go on prosperously there, money 
may still be needed. Men have been subjected to unjust punish- 
nunits, or at least threatened with them, under the unconstitu- 
tional la\A's of the Territory. It is desirable that these cases should 
be brought before a higher tribunal ; while the accused person may 
be a poor man unable to bear the expense of such a suit. The State 
appropriations could then be drawn upon for this purpose, and used 
to retain counsel, furnish evidence, and in other ways to forvA'ard the 
suit of the injured man. 

Would it not therefore be well for each State to make an appro- 
priation, which should remain in the hands- of the Governor, as in 
Vermont, or of a committee, until it should be needed in Kansas? 
It would thus be a contingent fund, to be drawn on only in cases of 
necessity, and it would be ready against any emergency. It might 
never be called for, or only a portion of it iniglit be used ; but should 
occasion arise, it would save our citizens in Kansas from juany of the 
liorrors which have afflicted them the past year. A bill embodying 



356 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

these ideas will be introduced iuto our legislature ; aud from the 
tone of our people we have good hope that it will pass. If a similar 
hill could pass your legislature T have no doubt the example would 
be followed by New York, Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, and per- 
haps by Ohio, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. A general 
movement of this kind would give us all we want ; and we might 
make Kansas free, I think, without expending a dollar of the money 
voted. The moral effect of such action on emigration from the North, 
and on the employment of capital, would be very important. Secu- 
rity would be iiiven that the rights of emigrants would be supported ; 
and the first result would be the emigration of thousands as soon as 
spring opens ; so that by July we should have a force of Noithem 
settlers there, enougli to sustain any form of law which might be set 
up. Without this, 1 fear that next year, in spite of the flattering 
promises of the present, will only see the last year's history repeated. 
There will be no confidence in the tranquillity of the Territory; 
capital will shun it ; emigration be almost stopped ; aud a year hence 
we may be no better off than now, — and perhaps worse. With these 
opiniiins, we look on State appropriations as tlie salvation of Kansas, 
and hope that the whcjle North may be led to the same view. 
With much respect, 

F. B. Sanborn, 
Corresponding Secretary of State Committee. 

Although my name is signed to this letter, it was the joint 
composition of the chairman (Mr. Steanis) and myself; and 
had been preceded by the following letters : — 

Boston, Dec. 18, 1856. 
H. H. Van Dyck, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Since my return I have received a letter from Gov- 
ernor Robinson, a copy of which is enclosed. 

In Connecticut they are ready to form a strong State coinmittee to 
co-operate with New York and Massachusetts, but, like you, are 
waiting for light. In Pliiladelpliia they have a very large committee, 
and are taking measures for the ultimate formation of a State com- 
mittee. We are taking measures to have a petition to our legisla- 
ture signed in every town in our State, and find it meets the general 
ai)proval of our citizens. We have also taken measures to get full 
information froin Chicago and Kansas as to the, past, whicli, when 
sent us, we will forward to you. Please let me know how you pro- 
gress in the work, and believe me 

Your sincere friend, 

George L. Stearns, 
Glinirman M. S. K. CmnmittM. 



1856.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 357 

Boston, Dec. 18, 1856. 
E. B. Whitman, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — We have to-day written to H. B. Hurd, Esq., ask- 
JDg fur permission f(jr an examination of his committee's doings and 
accounts by you. We have endeavored from time to time to get 
from them definite information of their operations ; and now, when 
grave charges are brought in our newspapers by Kansas men against 
them and their agents (tlie Central Committee in Kansas), we are 
entirely without tlie means of contradicting these assertions, and can 
only oppose our general knowledge of their good character and 
belief in their wise conduct to the positive statements now daily 
current. We therefore wish you to inform yourself as fully as pos- 
sible of all their operations from the commencement to the present 
time, taking such minutes of your researches as will enable you to 
give a full and close account to us, and also before our legislature, 
should you be called upon for that pui-pose. We want to know the 
disposition made of the money we have sent to them (about S21,G00, 
and two hundred riiies), an account of which you have ouclosed. 
We hope soon to see you in good henlth, and are 
Truly your friends, 

George L. Stearns, 
Chairman M. S. K. Committee. 

In connection witli the letter to Mr. Whitman given above, 
a letter was sent to Mr. Hurd, the Secretary of the National 
Committee, portions of which are as follows : — 

State Kansas Committee Rooms, 17 Niles Block, 
Boston, Dec. 18, 1856. 
H. B Htjrd, Esq., Chicago, III. 

Dear Sir, — Yours of the 10th was received to-day, and the 
arrangement which you have made with regard to the money will 
no doubt be satisfactory. I am sorry to say, however, that our 
committee are not satisfied with the infrequent and irregular commu- 
nication which exists betvA-een us and you. It is now more than 
four months since our commitiee has been expecting and hoping for 
an account of the money we have sent you, . . . and yet we can 
get no definite information as to the way in which your agents have 
expended our money ; nor have we had from time to time jnuch 
knowledge of the general course of your operations. You say that 
you have no time for such communications ; but certainly a com- 
mittee like ours, representing so many people and so much inoney, 
ought to take precedence in a correspondence with individuals. 
Such information as we seek is absolutely necessary to our acting in 



358 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

concert with you ; and for want of it we are now compelled to act 
by ourselves. In order to satisfy the committee and our contribu- 
tors as to what has been done, it is necessary that we should have 
copies of your accounts, — so far, at least, as they relate to our 
money ; and therefore we ask for the copy mentioned in the indorsed 
vote. And I am further directed to request that you will give our 
agent, Mr. E. B. Whitman, such information on this point as he may 
desire. . . . All that our committee wish is a full and business-like 
statement of what you have done and are doing ; for want of this 
they are compelled to cease acting as collectors of money for which 
they can obtain no sufficient vouchers. 
Truly yours, 

F. B. Sanborn, 
Corresponding Secretary Mass. State Committee. 

These letters, together with the movement to obtain 
legislative appropriations (one being actually voted by the 
State of Vermont), were the occasion of calling together 
the National Committee at the Astor House late in Jan- 
uary. But previously it was found needful to notify that 
committee as follows : — 

State Kansas Committee Eooms, 
BosTOJSi, Jan. 3, 1857. 

H. B. HURD, Esq., Secy. National Kansas Committee. 

Dear Sir, — The Massachusetts Kansas Committee have thought 
it best to rescind the vote by which certain rifles owned by S. Cabot, 
Jr., are made subject to the order of the Kansas Central Committee, 
and to resume possession of the saTne. They were taken on to 
Tabor, it is understood, by Dr. J. P. Root ; but they seem to be 
still at Tabor, and not to be at present needed in Kansas. Any 
information which you can give our agent Mr. Clark, or any direc- 
tions to your agents which will facilitate liis business, we hope you 
\\'ill give him. The necessary expense of ti'ansporting the rifles will 
be reimbursed by this ctimmittee when they have obtained actual 
possession of them ; and they will be held in trust for the- pcojile 
of Kansas for the present. 

Truly yours, 

F. B. Sanborn, 

Cor. Sec. Mass. S. K. Com. 

These were the very rifles which were carried to Mary- 
laud by Brown, for use in Virginia, two years and a half 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 359 

later ; but at this time there was no thought of any such 
campaign. Brown's purpose, as he disclosed it in Boston in 
January, 1857, was to equip and arm a hundred mounted 
men for defence and reprisal in Kansas ; and it was upon 
tliis plan that the National Committee, when it assembled, 
held a warm discussion, in which Brown himself took part. 
His request was for arms and money which he might be at 
liberty to use in his own way, his past conduct being his 
guaranty that he would use them wisely. A compromise 
was the result. The arms chiefly in question were voted 
back to the Massachusetts Committee, who, it was under- 
stood, would place them in Brown's hands ; and an appro- 
priation of five thousand dollars was made from the almost 
empty treasury of the ISTational Committee for his benefit ; 
while he was also to have the reversion of any arms in 
their possession not otherwise disposed of. This appears 
by the following votes : — 

At a meeting of the National Kansas Committee, held at the 
Astor House, in the city of New York, on the twenty-fourth day of 
January, A. D. 1857, the following resolutions were adopted : — 

1. Besolced, That the treasurer be directed to reserve in the 
treasury, out of any unappropriated moneys in his custody, or which 
may he hereafter sent to the National committee, the sum of five 
thousand dollars, to be used by the committee in aid of Captain 
Jolm Brown in any defensive measures that may become neces-» 
sary ; and that Captain Brown be, and he is hereby, authorized to 
draw upon the treasurer for the sum of five hundred dollars, as a 
portion of said sum, at such time as he may deem it expedient, 
for the said purposes. 

2. Resolved, That such arms and supplies as the committee may 
have, and which may be needed by Captain Brown, are appropii- 
ated to his use, provided, that the arms and supplies be not more 
than enough for one hundred men ; and that a letter of approbation 
be given him by this committee. 

H. B. Kurd, 
Sec. National Kansas Com. 

Any person having property covered by the above Resolution is 
requested to deliver the same to Mr. John Brown or his agent. 

H. B. HuRP. 



360 LlFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

In furtherance of these votes, Brown at once made out 
the following schedule, which he called a "Memorandum 
of small outfit : " — 

Memorandum of articles wanted as an outfit for fifty volunteers to 
serve under my direction during the Kansas war, or for such speci- 
fied time as they may each enlist for ; togetlier tcith estimated cost 
of the same, delivered in Lawrence or Topeka. 

2 substantial (but not heavy) baggage wagons with 

good covers |200.00 

4 good serviceable wagon -horses 400.00 

2 sets strong plain harness 50.00 

100 good heavy blankets, say at $2 or $2.50 .... 200.00 

8 substantial large-sized tents 100.00 

8 large cainp-kettles 12.00 

50 tin basins 6.00 

50 tin spoons 2.00 

4 plain strong saddles and bridles 80.00 

4 picket ropes and pins 3.00 

8 wooden pails 2.00 

8 axes and helves 12.00 

8 frying-pans ( large size) 8.00 

8 large size coffee-pots f. . . . 10.00 

8 " " spiders or bake-oveus 10.00 

8 " " tin pans 6.00 

12 spades and shovels 18.00 

6 mattocks 6.00 

2 weeks provisions for men and horses 150.00 

■ fund for horse-hire and feed ; loss and damage of 

same 500.00 

$1774.00 

Upon this list Mr. White remarked as follows : — 

AsTOR^HousE, New York, Jan. 27, 1857. 
Captain John Brown. 

Dear Sir, — I ain unable yet to give yon the schedule of articles 
which the committee propose placing in your hands. Please address 
me at Chicago, stating whether a letter may be still sent to you at 
the Massasoit House. It will be necessary for me to examine ship- 
ping-books, etc., in our office at Chicago. I brought your matters 
before the notice of the committee yesterday. Resolutions were 
passed directing the secretary to instruct Mr. Jones, of Tabor, to 
retain the supplies, etc., in his hands until you had made your 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 361 

selections. Resolutions were also adopted empowering me to ship 
clotliing, boots, etc., to you at Tabor, which will be done on the 
opening of navigation. Very truly, 

HoRACK White. 

Office National Kansas Committee,* 
11 Maeine Bank Building, Chicago, Feb. 18, 1857. 

John Brown, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — The articles specified in the schedule and order 
which you gave me in New York will be forwarded next week. I 
think we shall be able to make out the whole number required, 
filling the blanks with 100. They will be shipped as directed, and 
freight paid through. Mr. Jones'' has been notified to expect them. 
We hope to hear from you soon. 

Very truly, 

Horace White, 

Asst Sec. H. K. Com. 

If any evidence were nee.ded of Mr. White's entire confi- 
dence in Brown at this time, it would be furnished by this 
letter : — 

Chicago, March 21, 1857. 
Captain John Brown. 

My dear Friend, — I find it quite impossible to prepare a sched- 
ule of the property which belongs to you under the New York reso- 
lution. It can only be ascertained in the Territory. I am going 
there- myself about the first of next month, and I need not say tliat 
you may command my services at all times. Mr. Amy is there, and 
with the help of him and Mr. Whitman we shall probably be able 
to secure everything. At any rate we will work for it. Please let 
me hear how you are prospering. Write me a line directed to Chi- 
cago. If I am not here it will be forwarded to me. State when you 
expect to be in Kansas. If you should think it undesirable to have 
one of your letters sent through Missouri, you need not sign your 
name to it. I shall know the haadwriting. I anticipate perilous 
times ; and when the Philistines are upon us, I may possibly be found 
carrying a bayonet on the right side. 

Very truly, 

Horace White. 

P. S. I suppose the Boston people will fix you out with a return 
ticket. Perhaps it may not be amiss to send you the enclosed noH5. 
If you have other means of procuring just as well a free ticket, I 
would prefer you would not use this, because the railroads have done 
very liberally by us, and I do not wish to seem to be bleeding them. 



362 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

I would rather no one but yourself should have the benefit of the en- 
closed, because our credit with the Companies for the future depends 
somewhat upou the fairue.ss whicli tliey experience this summer.^ 
Again very truly, * 

H. W. 

Mr. Arny, General Agent of this committee, also wrote to 
Brown as follows : — 

Louisville, Ky., March 11, 1857. 
Captain Brown. 

Dear Sir, — I last week packed fourteen boxes clothing for you, 
marked "J. B., care Jonas Jones, Tabor, Iowa." In one of the 
boxes I put three mills to grind wheat or corn for bread, which I 
think will be useful to the men of your settlement. I could not get 
in every instance the full amount of clothiuij: required ; but have done 
the best I could. Anything I can do further for you, please let me 
know; and please acknowledge the receipt of this, directed tome, 
care of Simmons & Leadbeater, St. Louis, Mo. 

As ever your friend and well-wisher, 

AV. F. M. Arny. 

On the opposite page you will find a statement of the contents of 
the boxes. ^ 

^ The note enclosed runs thus : — 

Office National Kansas Committee, 11 Marine Bank Building, 

Chicago, March 21, 1857. 
Dear Sir, — Allow me to introduce Captain Jolin Brown, of Osawatomie, Kansas 
Territory. If you could consistently give him a trip pass over your road it would be 
regarded a special favor by the committee, and a persolial one to most of us. We sliall 
not be in the habit of makiu}; sucli requests, but in the present instance it is peculiarly 
wanted, and will be riyhtlj appreciated. 

Very respectfully, 

Horace White, 
Assistant Secretar}/ N. K. Committee. 
To C. B. Greenough, E.sq.j General Ticket Agent, New York & Erie Railroad, New 
York. 
William R. Barr, Esq., General Agent Lake Shore Railroad, Buffalo, N. Y. 
Dudley P. Phelps, Esq., General Ticket Agent, Michigan Soutliern Railroad, Toledo, 
Oliio. 

Upon which is the followincf indor.seinent in the handwriting of John 
Brown : "Horace White, March 21, 1857." 
2 These were given thus : — 

"Contents : Box No. 1, — 5 coats, 6 pains pants, 1 vest, 6 quilts, 8 
pairs hoots, 10 caps, 20 pairs socks, 10 pairs drawers, 22 shirts, and 5 pairs 
raits. Box No. 2,-24 coats, 22 pants, 12 vests, 12 quilts, 12 pairs 
drawers, 12 .shirts. Box No. 3, — 4 coats, 12 pants, 2 ve.sts, 12 quilts, 2 
pairs boots, 2 caps, 13 socks, 5 shirts, 9 pairs mits. Box No. 4, — 12 pairs 
hoots. Box No. 5, — 12 pairs boots. Box No. 6, — 18 pairs pants, 6 
vests, 11 quilts, 13 pairs boots, 18 caps, 42 socks, 1 pair drawers, 18 shirts, 



■k . 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 363 

These votes and letters, with the letters which liad pre- 
ceded them, and served as Brown's introduction where he 
was not personally known, fully refute the statements made 
many years later that Brown Avas looked upon with indif- 
erence or aversion by the friends of Kansas in 1856-57. 

The letter of Charles Eobinson, dated Sept. 14, 1856, at 
Lawrence (printed on page 330), was filled with praise of 
John Brown, and when it reached me in Boston, Jan. 2, 
1857, it bore these two indorsements : — 

Governoi- Chase's Indorsement. 

Columbus, Dec. 20, 1856. 
Captain John Brown, of Kansas Territory, is commended to me 
by a highly reputable citizen of this State as a gentleman every way 
worthy of entire confidence. I have also seen a letter from Governor 
Charles Robinson, whose handwriting I recognize, speaking of Cap- 
tain Brown and his services to the cause of the Free-State men in 
Kansas in terms of the warmest commendation. Upon these testi- 
monials I cordially recommend him to the confidence and regard of 
all who desire to see Kansas a free State. 

S. P. Chase.i 

13 pairs mits. Box No. 7,-15 quilts. Box No. 8,-19 quilts. Box 
No. 9, — 2 coats, 4 pants, 3 vests, 12 socks, 12 drawers, 16 shirts. Box 
No. 10, — 12 pairs boots. Box No. 11, — 48 coats, 4 quilts, 12 pairs 
boots. Box No. 12, — 41 pairs pants, 15 vests, 9 quilts, 9 boots, 46 caps, 
16 pairs socks. Box No. 13,-1 coat, 2 pants, 7 guilts, 9 pairs socks, 56 
pairs drawers, 31 shirts. Box No. 14, — 17 quilts. Whole amount as 
follows ; 84 coats, 105 pairs pants, 39 vests, 100 quilts and blankets, 68 
pairs boots, 76 caps, 112 pairs socks, 91 pairs drawers, 104 shirts, 27 pairs 
mits. 3 hand-mills for grinding grain." 

Upon all which is the following iudovsement in the handwriting of John 
Brown : •' W. F. M. Arny. Answered March 21." 

^ This eminent man, afterward Senator from Ohio and Chief-Justice of 
the United States, sent another h-tter to Brown six months later, but while 
he was still Governor of Ohio. It is interesting as showing that Governor 
Chase either did not know or did not choose to recognize the alias of 
" Nelson Hawkins," by which Brown was then addressed to avoid the open- 
ing of his letters by proslavery postmasters. 

Columbus, Ohio, June 6, 1857. 
Nelson Hawkins. 

My dear Sir, — Captain John B^o^vn lately wrote me, requesting that I put a sub- 
scription paper in aid of the cause of freedom in Kansas in the hands of some reliable 
and efficient person here. I am sorry to say that on consideration I do not find there is 



364 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 



Gerrit Smith's Letter. 

Peterboro', Dec. 30, 1856. 
Captain John Brown, — You did not need to show me letters 
from Governor Chase and Governor Rohiuson to let me know who 
and what you are. I have known you many years, and have highly 
esteemed you as long as 1 have known you. I know your unshrink- 
ing bravery, your self-sacrificing henevolence, your devotion to the 
cause of freedom, and have long known them. May Heaven preserve 
your life and health, and prosper your nohle purposes! 

Gerrit Smith. 

I may also cite here a letter from one of Brown's neigh- 
bors in Osawatomie, and still a resident of that town, writ- 
ten a year later than Robinson's, but breathing the same 
admiration and respect for the old captain : — 

Letter from Henry H. Williams. 

OSAWATOMIK, Oct. 12, 1857. 

Captain Brown. 

Dear Sir, — Learning that there is a messenger in town from 
you, I will take the opportunity to drop you a line. We are just 
through with the October election, and as far as this county is con- 
cerned it went off bright. This was owing in a great measure to 
our thorough military organization here, and the well-known repu- 
tation that our boys have for fighting. There were about four 
hundred and twenty-five votes cast in this county : about three 
hundred and fifty Free-State. I have a company organized here of 
about eighty men, and we drilled twice a week for several weeks 
previous to election, which no doubt had a wholesome effect upon 
the borderers. Our company is a permanent institution. We have 
sent on to St. Louis for three drums and two fifes. We are very 

any probability of obtaining any enntribntions here beyond tlie twenty-five dollars which 
I ol)tained for the Captain when here early last winter. Tlie capital of a State, where 
calls are so constant and must have attention, is a hard place to raise money ; and 
there are very few indeed who can be brought to see that the cause of freedom in Kansas 
at this time requires further oontributions. I write this note to you at the request of 
Captain Brown, who speaks of you as his special friend. 

Very respectfully and truly, 

S. P. Chase. 

Upon which is the followinjij indorsement in the handwriting of John 
Brown: "8. P. Chase. Requires no reply." Probably the twenty-five 
dollars was Mr. Chase's own gift. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 365 

poorly supplied with arms. However, I understand that you have 
some arms with you which you 4ntend to bring into the Territory. 
I hope that you will not forget the hoys here, a considerable number 
of whom have smelt gunpowder, and have had their courage tried on 
several occasions. I do not like to bcnist, but I think we have some 
of the best fighting stock here that there is in the Territory. Speak- 
ing of arms reminds me that there was a box containing five dozen 
revolvers sent to you at Lawrence last fall to be distributed by you to 
your hoys. K. and W. — two renegade Free-State men from here — 
went up to Lawrence about that time, told a pitiful tale, and said 
that they were your hoys ; and the committee that had the revolvers 
in charge gave them each one, and a Sharpie's rifle. A few days after, 
I was in Lawrence, and applied to the committee to know if they 
intended to distribute the revolvers; if they did, that I would like to 
have one. They refused, however, to let me have one, because for- 
sooth I could not tell as big a yarn about what I had done for the 
Free-State cause as K. and W. could. I have since learned that 
the committee have distributed the revolvers to the "Stubs" and 
others about Lawrence, with the understanding that they are to 
return them at your order. But I think it is doubtful if you get 
them. There has been plenty of Sharpe's rifles and other arms dis- 
tiibuted at Manhattan and other points remote from the Border, 
where they never have any disturbances, and a Border Eufiian is a 
curiosity ; while along the Border here, where we are liable to 
have an outbreak at any time, we have had no arms distributed 
at all. 

Two or three weeks before election I visited the Border counties 
south of this, and organized a company of one hundred men on the 
Little Osage, and a company on Sugar Creek ; also at Stanton and 
on the Pottawatomie above this point. According to the election 
returns, we have done migjh better in this and the Border counties 
south than they have in the Border counties north of this point. 
The hoys would like to see you and shake you by the hand once 
more. Nearly all would unite in welcoming you back here; those 
that would not, you have nothing to fear from in this locality. The 
sentiment of the people and the strength and energy of the Free-* 
State party here exercise a wholesome restraint upon those having 
Border Ruflfian proclivities. 

Yours as of old for the right, 

Henry H. Williams.^ 

1 This letter was addressed " To Captain John Brown, Tabor, Fremont 
County, Iowa," and among Brown's papers was accompanied with the 
following memorandum of the distribution made at Lawrence of the arms 



366 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

These letters, covering the whole period in 1856-57 during 
which Brown was absent from Kansas, are conclusive proof 
of the estimation in which he was held by the Free-lState 
settlers during " the time tliat tried men's souls." Tlie 
votes and letters of the National Committee show that they, 
too, as they came to know Brown better, trusted him more. 
But their affairs had not been very well managed, and their 
treasury became empty ; so that the money voted at New 
York did not appear, and when Brown wrote for it from 
New England, he received the following reply : — 

which Mr. Williams mentions, and which are the same spoken of hy Mr. 
White in his testimony on page 342. 

Memorandum of IVilliam Hutchinson, Lawrence. 

Blooniington. A. Curtis, Navy Revolver. No. 60,400 

Osawatomie. N. King, " " " 49,860 

J. B. Way, ■' " " 50,96G 
Keokuk. J. M. Arthur, eight revolvers with accoutre- 
ments. Numbers not taken. 

Pottawatomie. Wm. Partridge, Navy Revolver. No. 50,410 

Lawrence. E. C. Harrington, '' " " 51,171 

A. Cutler, " " " 00,905 

Minniola. O. A. Bassett, " " " 51,140 

The following are the numbers of others given to the "Stubs" : — 

49,980, 51,208, 50,992, 50,410, 51,2o3, 50,963, 49,947, 51,101, 

60,998, 50,909, 50,944, 51,043, 51,021, 51,033, 61,195, 50,994, 

50,980, 49,741, 50,446, 50,040, 51,019, 51,218, 51,200, 61,204. 

61,059, 50,948, 51,149, 50,958, 51,255, 

Mr. Whitman has one, and I think the others were distributed by 
Eldridge without taking receipts. 

Feeling too unwell to walk the distance, I gave up going to my si.ster's, 
and have looked up the above numbers. Sorry to hear of your ill-health. 
Still it is nothing unusual to hear of sickness all over the Territory. I 
have waited for Eldridge to act; but he has left, I think, without doing 
ajiything for you, and as soon as I can take the time I will make one more 
earnest effort for you in this place, and am sure that sonic can be obtained. 
Say to Mr. Kagi I gave the order for Parsons's gun into the hands of Mr. 
Lyon's family, and they promised to bring it to town, but it has not come 
yet. 

If you get any news of importance, please inform me. 

Yours again, 

Wm. Hutchinson. 

Upon which is the following indorsement in the handwriting of John 
Brown : " Wm. Hutchinson's letter." The date is not given, but it must 
be in 1857-58. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 367 

Office National Kansas Committee, 

11 Marine Bank Building, 

Chicago, April 1, 1857. 
Captain John Brown, Springfield, Mass. 

At a meetiug of the National Kansas Cominittee, held this day, it 
was 

Resolved, That as according to the present state of the public 
feeling, evinced by the almost total cessation of contributions to 
the funds (jf tiie committee, it appears that the means of carrying ou 
our operations will not be forthcoming from the usual sources ; there- 
fore, it is expedient to take immediate measures to settle the liabili- 
ties, and close the accounts of the committee, and to reduce the 
current expenses to the lowest possible point ; and that the secretary 
be instructed to take measures accordingly. 

Eesolved, further, That the secretary be instructed to write to the 
members of tlie committee residing in other cities, — to Messrs. Gree- 
ley «St McElrath, Hon. Gerrit Smith, and other prominent donors 
and friends, — setting iorth the fact of the cessation of C(jntribntious 
as above stated, and the necessity we are under of closing our opera- 
tions, unless immediately sustained by liberal contributions. 

We are sorry to be obliged to come to the above conclusion, but 
are compelled to do so. There are several important undertakings 
now in hand, which we shall liave to abandon, unless further means 
are forthcoming. The committee are at present out of money, and 
are compelled to decline sending you the five hundred dollars you 
speak of. They are sorry tliis has become the case, but it was un- 
avoidable. I need not state to you all the reasons wliy. The country 
has stopped sending us contributions, and we liave no means of re- 
plenishing our treasury. We shall need to have aid from some 
quarter to enable us to meet our present engagements. 

I send you a copy of the list of articles selected for you by Mr. 
Amy. Our opinion is that some things have been selected that you 
do not need; such, for instance, as quilts, unless it is intended to 
supply the families of the company, and mits, which I suppose means 
ladies' mits. If he means mittens they would be useful.' 
Yours, etc., 

H. B. HuRD. 

Secretary National Kansas Committee. 

Thus ended the hopes of further material aid from the 
National Committee. The Massachusetts Committee kept 

1 Upon this is the following indorsement in the handwriting of John 
Brown : " H. B. Hurd. Needs no comment." 



368 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

its word better. Before the Astor House meeting it had 
made Brown the custodian of the two hundred rifles at Tabor, 
and had suggested to him tlie following receipt, which, with 
its erasures, is among the Brown Papers at Topeka : — 

State Kansas Aid Committee Room, 
Boston, Jan. 7, 1857. 

Received of George L. Stearns, Chairman of the Massachusetts 
Kansas Aid Committee, an order on Edward Clark, Esq., of Law- 
rence, K. T., for two hundred Sharpe's ritles, carbines, with four 
thousand ball cartridges, thirty-one thousand military caps, and six 
iron ladles, — the same to be delivered to said committee, or to their 
order, on demand. It being farther understood and agreed that I 
(am at liberty to distribute one hundred of the carbines, and to use 
the ammunition for maintaining the cause of freedom in Kansas and 
in the United States, and that such distribution and use shall be con- 
sidered a delivery to said committee). [Have authority to use one 
hundred of the carbines, and all the ammunition, as I may think the 
interests of Kansas require. Keeping an account of my doings] ; 
and that such delivery and use shall be considered as such delivery.^ 

A week later I wrote to Edward Clark, another agent of 
our committee (Jan. 15, 1857) : — 

" We have made the rifles subject to Captain Brown's order, as we 
wrote you. From Mr. Winchell's account, we conclude that you wUl 
find them in the Territory, and in the hands of the Central Commit- 
tee. ^ lu the quarrel between the National and the Central Com- 
mittees, we hope you will keep yourself strictly neutral, and inform us 
how the case really stands. We hear charges of misconduct from both 

1 The words in parentheses are marked across in the original, evidently 
for the purpose of erasure ; the words in brackets are in a different hand- 
writing from the rest of the paper. There is no indorsement except the 
word "Boston " written twice in Brown's handwriting. 

2 Originallj' they had been forwarded to this committee, as appears by 
the following note : — 

State Kansas Aid Committre Rooms, 

Boston, Sept. 30, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — At a meeting of this ooTiiinittee it was voted. That the arms purchased 

by Dr. Cabot, in aoenrdanoe with a vote of the oomniittee, passed September 10, be 

forwarded to the Kansas Central Committee at Lawrenee, with instructions that they 

be loaned. to actual .settlers for defence against unlawful aggressions upon their rights 

and liberties. 

Gkoroe L. Stearns, Chnirman. 
H. B. HuRD, Esq., Chicago. 



1 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 369 

sides. The order of Captain Brown will not probably be issued till 
spring, if it is at all, since his use of the riHes depends on a contingency 
wliich may not occur." 

On Jan. 30, 1857, still later- instrnctions followed to Mr. 

Clark : — 

"The National Committee, at their meeting in New York, voted 
to resign all claim to the rities at Tabor to our committee ; and Mr. 
Hurd is to notify you of the fact officially. If, therefore, you have 
commenced any proceedings to get possession of them from the 
Nati<mal Committee, you may suspend all action until you receive 
Mr. Kurd's letter, which will give you full power in the premises. 
We learn that the rides are at Tabor, in charge of a certain Jonas 
Jones, and that they are properly stored and cared for. If this 
should not be so, or if the Central Committee at Lawrence have 
interfered with them at all, you may take measures to get immediate 
possession, as directed by us. All matters at issue between our 
committee and the National Committee have been satisfactorily 
settled, and we trust there will be no further misunderstandings. 
Mr. Hurd has been in Boston and arranged all things. We have 
been expecting a letter from you for some days. By the time this 
reaches you, you will have been at Tabor, we presume. There 
write us a full account of your proceedings, and also of the present 
condition of things in Kansas, the position of the Central Committee, 
etc. Much business was done at the New York meeting ; but no 
final settlement of accounts could be made, by reason of the absence 
of important persons and papers. Conway and Whitman are here, 
preparing to appear before the legislative committee about a State 
appropriation." 

The closing sentence of this letter indicates that the 
Massachusetts Committee, in furtherance of the policy ex- 
plained to Governor Grimes, was preparing to obtain a 
State appropriation from the legislature which was then 
in session at Boston. John Brown was summoned as 
a witness before this legislature, and gave his testimony 
in the hall of the House of Representatives, February 
18, 1857, the committee on Federal Relations holding a 
hearing in that place for the purpose. There are but 
few letters from Brown at this time. Here is one of 
them : — 

24 



370 LIEE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 



John Brown to the Rev. S. L. Adair. 

Boston, Mass., Feb. 16, 1857. 
Dear Brother and Sister Adair, — It is a long time since I 
have heard a word from you, but I suppose it is because I liave been 
continually shifting about since my return to the States. I am 
getting quite anxious to hear from you, and to get your views on 
your own prospects and present condition, together with your ideas 
of Governor Geary and of Kansas matters generally. I have not 
heard a word fi'om Hudson or Akron since December ; but that is 
owing to the fact that I have had no place fixed upon, till of late, 
where to receive letters. This has been from a kind of necessity; 
but I can now say, do write me at Springfield, Mass., care of the 
Massasoit House, leaving the title of Captain off. I now expect to 
go to Kansas (quietly) before long ; but I do not wish it noised 
about at all. Can you tell me what has become of Captain Holmes 
of your place ? I expect to appear before a committee of the Massa- 
chusetts legislature in a day or two. My family were well about a 
week ago. Your affectionate brother, 

John Brown. 

It fell to ray lot to introduce Brown to the legislative 
committee, February 18 ; and I did so in these words : — 

"As one of the petitioners for State aid to the settlers of Kansas, 
I appear before you to state briefiy the purpose of tlie petition. No 
labored argument seems necessary ; for if the events of tlie last 
two years in Kansas, and the prospect there for the future, arc not of 
themselves enough to excite Massachusetts to action, certainly no 
words could do so. We have not provided ourselves with advocate.^, 
therefore, but with witnesses; and we expect that the stateuicuts of 
Captain Brown and Mr. Wliitman will show conclusively tliat the 
rights and interests of Massachusetts have suffered gross outrage in 
Kansas, — an outrage which is likely to be repeated unless measures 
are taken by you to prevent so shameful an abuse. Your petitioners 
desire that a contingent appropriation be made by the legislature, 
to be placed in the hands of a commission of responsible and conser- 
vative men, and used only in case of necessity to relieve the distress 
of the settlers of Kansas, — especially such as have gone from our 
own State. It is possible that no such necessity will occur ; but 
nothing, in the opinion of your petitioners, would do so much to 
obviate it as the proposed appropriation. Such an act w-ould both 
encourage our friends in Kansas and disliearten their oppressors ; and 



1857. J THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. oU 

the inorul effect of it would be greater than auy which would follow 
from the expenditure of a much larger sum. 

'' Let it not be understood, however, that the petitioners ask for 
this as a simple act of charity, or are willing to rest their case on 
the common arguments for a charitable donation. The question 
involved is not merely whether the hungry shall be fed, the naked 
clothed, and the houseless sheltered ; it reaches far beyond this : it is 
the issue between freedom and slavery, in Kansas and in the nation. 
Why should we refuse to see this manifest fact? 

'' Viewed in this light, we feel justified in regarding our petition as 
the most important matter which the General Court has now to con- 
sider. The interests of banks and railroads, points of etiquette 
between different branches of the government, — even, the solemn 
discussions which involve the lives of condemned men, — all seem 
trivial beside this most public and pressing business. I think, Mr. 
Chairman, that the people of Massachusetts will soon ask, if they 
have not already begun, ' What preparation are our Senators and 
Representatives making for the crisis which they were elected specially 
to meet ? How are they raising themselves to the height of this great 
argument ? ' Is it not true, sir, that yourself and nine tenths of 
your colleagues in this body were elected as declared supporters of 
two all-important measures, — the re-election of Charles Sumner 
and the establishment of freedom in Kansas ? And do you believe 
that the one which you have so triumphantly accomplished is one 
whit more dear to the people than the other? Let the liberal con- 
tributions of the wliole State, in money and clothing, and the 
numerously signed petitions which are presented here daily, answer 
that. Can you hesitate, then, to give expression to the will of the 
people, — not merely in words, which cost nothing and are worth 
nothing, but in substantial deeds? 

" It lias been suggested that some persons doubt the constitution- 
ality of the proposed measure. That is rather a question to be 
decided by the legislature than a point to be argued by the petition- 
ers ; but should it be necessary, which I can hai'dly think possible, I 
have no doubt they can fully show its constitutionality, of which 
they make no question. The name of Judge Parker, attached to the 
Cambridge petition, and the decided opinion of several eminent 
jurists, confirm their belief. We have invited Captain Brown and 
Mr. Whitman to appear in our behalf, because these gentlemen are 
eminently qualified either to represent Massa<diusetts in Kansas or 
Kansas in Massachusetts. The best blood of the ' Mayflower ' runs 
in the veins of both, and each had an ancestor in the army of tlie 
Revolution. Mr. Whitman, seventh in descent from Miles Standish, 
laid the foundation of the first church and the first schoolhouse in 



372 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

Kansas; John Brown, the sixth descendant of Peter Browne, of the 
' Mayflower,' has been to Kansas what Standish was to the Plymouth 
Coh>ny. These witnesses have seen the things of which they testify, 
and have felt the oppression we ask you to check. Ask this gray- 
haired man, gentlemen, — if you have the heart to do it, — where lies 
the body of liis murdered son ; where are the homes of his four other 
sons, who a year ago were quiet farmers in Kansas. I am ashamed, 
in presence of this modest veteran, to express the admiration which 
his heroism excites in me. Yet he, so venerable for his years, his 
integrity, and his courage, — a man whom all Massachusetts rises 
up to honor, — is to-day an outlaw in Kansas. To these witnesses, 
whose unsworn testimony deserves and will receive from you all 
the authority which an oath confers, I will now yield place." 

Brown then addressed the commitee and a large audience 
who had assembled to hear hiui. He made in substance the 
same speech which he gave that winter at Hartford, at Con- 
cord, and elsewhere ; reading from his manuscript (which I 
have already cited) an account of the destruction of property 
and of life by the Missouri invaders in 1855-56, and speak- 
ing of the inactivity of the Federal Government, except in 
the protection of these invaders. He described modestly 
the last attack on Lawrence, and denied that it had been 
saved from destruction by Governor Geary. In answer to 
questions by the chairman of the committee (Senator Albee, 
of Marlborough) he gave the account — since so well known 
— of his visiting Buford's men near Osawatomie in the guise 
of a surveyor ; and quoted them as telling him that the 
Yankees could not be coaxed, driven, or whipped into a 
fight, and that one Southerner could whip a dozen Aboli- 
tionists ; they intended to drive out the whole Free-State 
population of Kansas, if that should be necessary to estab- 
lish slavery in the new State ; if Kansas was free, Missouri 
could not maintain slavery, they told him. When asked 
what sort of emigrants were needed to make Kansas free, 
Brown replied, " We want good men, industrious and honest, 
who respect themselves, and act only from principle, from 
the dictates of conscience ; men who fear God too much 
to fear anything human." Questioned by Senator Albee 
concerning the probable need and effect of such an appro- 
priation as was sought for. Brown replied : " Whenever we 



1857] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 373 

heard last year that the people of the Korth were doing 
anything for us, we were encouraged and strengthened to 
keep up the contest. At present there is not much danger 
of an invasion from Missouri. God protects us in winter ; 
but when the grass gets high enough to feed the horses of 
the Border Ruffians we may have trouble, and should be 
prepared for the worst. Things do not look one iota more 
encouraging now — except that the winter is milder — than 
they did last year at this time. You may remember that 
from the Shannon treaty, which ended the Wakarusa war, 
till early in May, 1856, there was general quiet in Kansas. 
No violence was offered to our citizens when they went to 
Missouri. I frequently went there myself to buy corn and 
other supplies. I was known there ; yet they treated me 
well. I do not know that there will be another invasion, 
but should expect one. Yet the actual settlers who go to 
Kansas from the slave States have many of them turned to 
be the most determined Free-State men, — lighting in all 
our battles. The comparative strength of the parties as 
regards numbers, intelligence, industry, and good habits gen- 
erally, is all on our side ; but the machinery of a genuine 
territorial government is not yet in operation, while the 
Federal Government is wholly on the side of slavery." 

The movement for a State appropriation was unsuccessful, 
but the Massachusetts Committee continued their contribu- 
tions to John Brown. 

Among the contributors to his fund was Mr. Amos Law- 
rence, of Boston, who wrote to Brown as follows the day 
after the speech in the State House : — 

Boston, Feb. 19, 1857. 
My dear Sir, — Enclosed yon will find seventy dollars. Please 
write to John Conant, of East Jaffrey, N. H., and acknowledge re- 
ceipt ; or write to me saying you have received the Jaifrey money, 
and I will send your letter to them. It is for your own personal use, 
and not for the cause in any other way than that. I am sorry not to 
have seen you before you left. It may not be amiss to say that you 
may find yourself disappointed if you rely on the National Kansas 
Committee for any considerable amount of money. Please to con- 
sider this as confidential ; and it is only my own opinion, without 
definite linowledge of their operations. 1 hope they will get a great 



374 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

deal of inooey, but think they will uot. The old managers have 
not inspired confidence, and therefore money will be hard for them 
to get now and hereafter. This check, you will see, needs your 
indorsement. 

May God bless you, my dear sir, is the wish of your friend, 

Amos A. Lawrence. 

While Brown was ordering his pikes in Connecticut, Mr. 
Lawrence wrote him again in these words : — 

(Private.) 

Boston, March 20, 1857. 
My dear Sir, — Your letter fi-om New Haven is received. I 
have just sent to Kansas near fourteen thousand dollars to establish 
a fund to be used, first, to secure the best system of common scliools 
for Kansas that exists in this country ; second, to establish Sunday- 
schools. 

The property is held by two trustees in Kansas, and cannot return 
to me. On this account, and because I am always short of money, 
I have not the cash to use for the purpose you name. But in case 
anything should occur, while you are engaged in a great and good 
cause, to shorten your life, you may be assured that your wife and 
children shall be cared for more liberally than you now propose. The 
family of ''Captain John Brown of Osawatomie " will not be turned 
out to starve in this country, until Liberty herself is driven out. 
Yours with regard, 

Amos A. Lawrence. 

I hope you will not run the risk of arrest. 

I never saw the otiVr to which you refer, in the "-Telegraph," and 
have now forgotten what it was. Come and see me when you have 
time. 

A. A. Lawrence. 

Soon after the Boston hearing, Brown visited his fam- 
ily at North Elba; and early in March returned to New 
England, where he revisited the graves of his ancestors in 
Connecticut. These letters relate to this period: — 

John Broivn to his Wife. 

Hartford, Coxn., March 6, 1857. 
Dear Wife, — I enclose with this a letter from Owen, written 
me from Albany. He appeared to be very much depressed before he 



jiSi 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. ^75 

left me ; but there was no possible misunderstanding between us that 
I knew of. I did not pay Samuel Thompson all that I ought to have 
given him for carrying us out, and wish you would make it up to 
him, if you can well, out of what I have sent you. If you get hay 
of him, I will send or fetch the money soon to pay for it. I shall 
send you some newspapers soon to let you see what different stories 
are told of me. None of them tell things as I tell them. Write me, 
care of the Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass. 
Your affectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., March 12, 1857. 
Dear Wife and Children all, — I have just got a letter from 
John. AH middling well, March 2, but Johnny, who has the ague 
by turns. I now enclose another from Owen. I sent you some 
papers last week. Have just been speaking for three nights at Can- 
ton, Conn., and at CoUinsville, a village of that town. At the two 
places they gave me eighty dollars. Canton is where both father 
and mother were raised. They have agreed to send to my family at 
North Elba grandfather John Brown's old granite monument, about 
eighty years old, to be faced and inscribed in memory of our poor 
Frederick, who sleeps in Kansas.^ I prize it very highly, and the 
family all will, I think. I want to see you all very much, but can- 
not tell when I can go back yet. Hope to get something from you 
here soon. Direct as before. May God bless you all ! 
Your affectionate husband and father. 

Mr. Rust, to whom the next letters were written, says 
that he had a " store " at CoUinsville in 1857, and John 
Brown was there in April, showing to various persons the 
bowie-knife that he captured with Pate in Kansas. As he 
did so, Brown said : '•' Such a blade as this, mounted upon a 
strong shaft, or handle, would make a cheap and effective 
weapon. Our friends in Kansas are without anus or money 

1 This note from a friend in Connecticut shows how soon the gravestone 
was removed to North Elba : — 

CoLLiNSViLLE, April 17, 1857. 
Captain J. Brown. 

Dear Sir, — Your favnr of tlie 16th is .jiist at hand. The pistols I shall send to- 
morrow morning. I received the pacl<age for S. Brown, and delivered it. The expense 
on the parcel was one dollar fifty, but I am very willing to pay that myself Your 
friends have sent the old stone to your place. Hoping to see you soon, I remain 
Yours respectfully, 

H. N. Rust. 



376 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

to get them ; and if I could put such weapons into their 
hands, they could make them very useful. A resolute wo- 
man, with such a pike, could defend her cabin door against 
man or beast. What can such a weapon be made for ? " Mr. 
Rust guessed for a dollar each, in quantity. " Very well," 
said Brown ; " I would be glad to pay that price for a 
thousand ; " and it was agreed that Mr. Rust should try to 
get them made in Collinsville for that price, by Charles 
Blair. Mr. Rust further says : — 

" During one of his visits I carried hiin to Canton to ,see his 
relatives. Not far from their house he noticed a tombstone leaning 
against the stone wall by the roadside. He got out and examined it, 
and found it to be his grandfather's ; whereupon he said, ' I will go 
back and see if iny cousins will let me have it.' They consented, 
and afterwards brought it to me at Collinsville ; and I sent it to his 
address at North Elba. ' That stone,' said he, ' formerly marked 
the grave of my grandfather, \vho died fighting for the liberties of 
his country ; my sou has just been murdered in the same cause in 
Kansas, and the Government ap)ilauded the murderer. This stone 
shall bear his name also ; and I will have it set up at Nortli 
Elba.' " 

John Brown to H. N. Rust. 

Springfield, Mass., April 16, 1857. 
H. N. Rust, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — Your favor of the 9th is received. Please for- 
ward to me by express the pistols you have received, and also send 
me with them the amount you had to pay on the whole x>acTiage. Be 
kind enough to say to my friend Blair that I expect funds within a 
day or two to meet my engagement, and that I mean to call on him. 
Please direct the package to John (not Captain) Brown, care Mas- 
sasoit House, Springfield, Mass. Did you receive the package for 
Selden H. Brown ? 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

Springfield, Mass., April 25, 1857. 
H. N. Rust, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I did not see you the other morning before I 
left, as I expected. Please hand line and draft to Mr. Blair at once. 
The sabre you got is the identical one taken from Lieutenant 
Brocket at Black Jack surrender. I would on no account have you 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 377 

buy it of me, as you really have done, but that I am laterally driven 
to beg, — which is very humiliating. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

(JSfote hy Mr. Bust.) 

The draft was spoken of in the letter of April 16, and was 
handed to Mr. Blair; the sabre was a present to me from Captain 
Brown, received with the pistols ; the pay spoken of was the bill 
for the pistols, which I did not send him as requested. The pistols 
had been used in Kansas and sent East for repairs ; the funds spoken 
of were t<j be the first payment for the pikes which had been ordered 
not long before. 

CHARLES BLAIR's CONTRACT. 

CoLLiNSViLLE, CoNN., March 30, 1857. 
The undersigned agree to the following : First, Charles Blair, of 
this place, is to make and deliver at the railroad depot in Collins- 
ville one thousand spears with handles fitted, of equal quality to one 
dozen already made and sent to Springfield, Mass. Th«! handles are 
to be six feet in length, and tlie ferules to be made of strong malleable 
iron. The handles to be well tied in bundles ; and the blades with 
screws for fastening to be securely packed in strong boxes suitable 
for the transportation of edge tools. In consideration whereof, John 
Brown, late of Kansas, agrees to deposit five hundred dollars with 
Samuel W. Collins within ten days from this date, in part payment ; 
and four hundred and fifty dollars as paymeut in full for the above- 
named one thousand spears and handles within thirty days thereafter. 
The whole money to be deposited with said Collins at Collinsville, 
and the spears and handles to be held subject to the order of said 
Brown, on or before the first of July next. 

Charles Blair. 

John Brown. 

Collinsville, March 30, 1857. 

Received of John Brown, Esq., fifty dollars on account of spear 
contract. 

Charles Blair. 

Received on the within contract one hundred dollars. 

Collinsville, April 22, 1857. 
Received the same date two hundred dollars. 



378 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

Letters to John Brown hy C. Blair. 

Hartford, April 15, 1857. 
Mr. Brown. 

Dear Sir, — I received yours in relation to the funds which, you 
expected from the Kansas Committee, and I wouki say that I have 
not taken any further measures with the spears than to ascertahi 
where I can get the handles and ferules, etc. If you do not find it 
convenient to raise the funds for a thousand, I will make you five 
hundred at the same rate. I should think the cc^mmittee were not 
treating you very fairly by not honoring your drafts after the promise 
they had made you. I shall wait further orders from you before I 
proceed further. 

Truly yours, 

Charles Blair. 

COLLINSVILLE, CONN., Aug. 27, 1857. 
Mr. Brown. 

Dear Sir, — Yours of the 14th instant came to hand last Satur- 
day. In regard to those articles, I have to say that I commenced the 
whole number ; have all the handles well seasoned, the ferules and 
guards, screws, etc., and have some over five hundred of them ground, 
but not hearing anything further fi-om you, I have let them rest until 
such times as you can make your ari-augements. I thouglit I would 
not make any further outlay upon them, at least until I heard from you. 
I did not know but things would take such a turn in Kansas tliat they 
.would not be needed. Of this you can judge better than I can. I 
did not feel able to bear the loss of having them left on my hands 
after I had finished them up, as you are aware that we did not expect 
much profit on the manufacture of the articles; but I am not disposed 
to cast the least blame upon you. I very well know that when a man 
is depending upon the public for money he is very liable to be disap- 
pointed, and I judge from the tenor of your letter that you will not 
blame me for stopjnng them, as I had used up the funds. I therefore 
wait your further orders whether to finish them up or to let them rest 
where they are. Don't give yourself any uneasiness about the affair, 
for if I go no further with them, I shall lose nothing, or but little ; 
and I have no doubt you and T can make the matter satisfactory in 
some way. Your son (Oliver) is in the village, but is not now at 
work for me. My work in the shop was too hard for him in the hot 
weather, and he has been out at haying. I think he may get some 
job in the shop soon. Let me hear from you when convenient. 
Very respectfully yours, 

Charles Rlair. 



I 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 379 

•In speaking at Hartford and Canton, Brown used the 
same manuscript as at Boston; but at the end of his ad- 
dress made this appeal to the citizens of Connecticut, where 
he felt more at home than in Massachusetts : — 

"I am trying to raise from twenty to twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars in the free States, to enable me to continue my efforts in the 
cause of freedom. Will the people of Connecticut, my native State, 
afford me some aid in this undertaking ? Will the gentlemen and 
ladies of Hartford, where I make my first appeal in this State, set 
the example of an earnest effort ? Will some gentleman or lady 
take hold and try what can be done by small contributions from 
counties, cities, towns, societies, or churches, or in some other way ? 
I think the little beggar-children in the streets are sufficiently inter- 
ested to warrant their contributing, if there was any need of it, to 
secure the object. I was told that the newspapers in a certain city 
were dressed in mourning on hearing that I was killed and scalped 
in Kansas, but I did not know of it until I reached the place. Much 
good it did me. In the same place I met a more cool reception than 
in any other place where I have stopped. If my friends will hold up 
my hands while I live, I will freely abs(dve them from any expense 
tiver me when I am dead. I do not ask for pay, but shall be most 
grateful for all the assistance I can get." 

At the same time, or a little earlier, Brown published 
this letter in the "New York Tribune" of March 4, 
1857 : — 

To the Friends of Freedom. 

The undersigned, whose individual means were exceedingly lim- 
ited when he first engaged in the struggle for liberty in Kansas, 
being now still more destitute, and no less anxious than in time past 
to continue his efibrts to sustain that cause, is induced to make this 
earnest appeal to the friends of freedom throughout the United 
States, in the firm belief that his call will not go unheeded. I ask 
all honest lovers of liberty and human rights, both male and female, 
to hold up my hands by conti-ibutions of pecuniary aid, either as 
counties, cities, towns, villaa:es, societies, churches, or individuals. 
I will endeavor to make a judicious and faithful application of all 
such means as I may be supplied with. Contributions may be sent 
in drafts to W. H. D. Callender, cashier State Bank, Hartford, 
Conn. It is my intention to visit as many places as I can during 
my stay in the States, provided I am first informed of the disposition 



380 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

of the inhabitants to aid me in my efforts, as well as to receive my 
visit. lufoi'mation may be communicated to me (care of Massasoit 
House) at Springfield, Mass. Will editors of newspapers friendly to 
the cause kindly second the measure, and also give this some half- 
dozen insertions ? Will either gentlemen or ladies, or both, who 
love the cause, volunteer to take up the business f It is with no 
little sacrifice of personal feeling that I appear in this manner before 
the public. 

John Brown. 

About a mouth after his address in the State House at 
Boston, Brown visited me in Concord, and held a successful 
public meeting there. He afterwards spoke in Worces- 
ter, and the following correspondence relates to matters 
there : — 

Letters of Eli Thayer. 

WoKCESTEK, March 18, 1857. 

Friend Brown, — I have just returned from Albauy, and find 
your favor of the Ifith. I am glad you had a g(jod meeting at Con- 
cord, — as I knew you would have, for the blood of heroes is not ex- 
tinct in tliat locality. I will see some of our friends here to-morrow, 
and we will decide at once about your speaking here. If you are to 
speak, you will do well to be here a day or two in advance, and con- 
verse with some of our citizens. I will write you again to-mont)W. 

Truly yours, 

Eli Thayer. 

"Worcester, March 19, 1857- 

Friend Brown, — I have seen some of our friends to-day, and 
they say you had better come here next Monday. There is to be an 
antislavery meeting in the evening, and I think it will be a very good 
time f(^r you to present your cause, — which is the Free-State cause 
of Kansas, which is the cause of mankind. I shall expect you to do 
me the favor of stopping at my house. 

Truly yours, 

Eli Thayer. 

Upon both these letters is this indorsement in the hand- 
writing of John Brown : " Eli Thayer. Answered March 
23d in person." This means that he went to Worcester,^ 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 381 

Monday, the 23d, and spoke that night at the antislavery 
meeting,^ of which he had been notified. 

Worcester, March 30, IS.')?. 
Captain Brown, — I have received your letter from Easton, 
Penu. Some of the men engaged iu the Virginia s(theme care 
notliiug for slavery or antislavery but to make money. Of course 
such will do nothing for Kansas ; but most of us have been doing, 
and shall continue to do, till the thing is settled. We have not 
the remotest idea of relinquishing Kansas, — not at all. I have 
just seen Mr. Higgiusou, and he intoruis me that our county commit- 
tee will let you have fifty dollars. Perhaps, also, something will be 
raised by subscription, — I gave the papers to Mr. Higgiuson. He 
will write to you. Please let me know when you ai'e coming this 
way. Do not pay postage on your letter to me, — let Uncle Sam do 
his part. Truly youi's, 

En Thayer.* 

While Brown was at Worcester on this second visit, he 
was introduced by Mr. Thayer to the manufacturers of arms 

1 Dr. Wayland, of Philadelphia, who was then a young clergyman in 
Worcester, thus writes respecting the occasion : — 

"In the spring of 1857, just after the Dred Scott decision of the 
Supreme Court, I, being then a resident of Worcester, was getting up 
a lecture for Frederick Douglass, at which the then Mayor of the city 
for the first time in an American city presided at an address of Mr. 
Douglass. I called at the house of Eli Thayer, afterwards member of 
Congress from that District, to ask him to sit on the platform. Here I 
found a stranger, a man of tall, gaunt form, with a face smooth-shaven, 
destitute of the full beard that later became a part of history. The 
children were climbing over his knees ; he said, ' The children always 
eome to me.' I was then introduced to John Brown of Osawatomie. 
Haw little one imagined then that \^ithin less than three j^ears the name 
of this plain home-spun man would fill America and Europe ! Mr. Brown 
consented to occupy a place on the platform, and at the urgent request of 
the audience spoke briefly. It is one of the curious facts, that many men 
who do it are utterly unable to tell about it. John Brown, a tlame of fire 
in action, was dull in speech.'' 

2 This letter is indorsed by John Brown, " Hon. Eli Thayer. Answered 
1st April," — which was soon after Brown's return from a visit he had made 
with Martin Conway and myself to Governor Reeder at his home at Easton, 
in the hope of persuading him to go back and take the lead of the Free- 
State men in Kansas in place of Robinson, who had lost the confidence of 
tlie people. 



382 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

in that city, of which this note and the subsequent corres- 
pondence is evidence : — 

April 4, 1857. 

Messrs. Allen & Wheelock, — Captain Brown wishes to get 
a cannon and rifle which 1 have given him so sighted as to secure 
accuracy. I hope you will attend to his wishes. 

Truly yours, 

Eli Thayer. 

What the further errand of the Kansas hero was with 
this firm will be seen below : — 



Letters to and from Eli Thaxjer^ etc. 

Springfield, Mass., April 16, 1857. 
Hon. Eli Thayer. 

My dear Sir, — I am advised that one of " Uncle Sam's hounds 
is on my track ; " and I have kept myself hid for a few days to let iny 
track get cold. I have no idea of being taken, and intend (if God 
will) to go back with irons in rather than upon iny hands. Now, my 
dear sir, let me ask you to have Mr. Allen & Co. send me by express 
one or two navy-sized revolvers as soon as may be, together with his 
best cash terms (he warranting them) by the hundred with good 
moulds, flasks, etc. I wish the sample pistols sent to John (not 
Captain) Brown, care of Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass. I now 
enclose twenty dollars towards repairs done for me and revolvers ; the 
balance I will send as soon as I get the bill. I have written to have 
Dr. Howe send you by express a rifle and tw(j pistols, which with the 
guns you gave me and fixings, together with the rifle given me by 
Mr. Allen & Co., I wisli them to pack in a suitable strong box, per- 
fectly safe, directing to J. B., care of Orson M. Oviatt, Esq., Cleve- 
lanil, Ohio, as freight, to keep dry. For box, trouble, and packing I 
will pay when I get the bill. I wish the box very plainly marked, 
and forwarded to Cleveland, as soon as you receive the articles from 
Dr. Howe. I got a fine list in Boston the other day, and hope Wor- 
cester will not be entirely behind. I do not mean you or Mr. Allen 
&Co. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

P. S. Direct all letters and bills to care of Massasoit House. 
Please acknowledge. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 383 

April 17, 1857. 

Friend Brown, — I have received your letter containing twenty 
diilliirs, and have given it over with contents to Alien & Wheelock, 
who will attend to your requests. I shall leave to-night for New 
York City, and may not be back again to look after the things. Please 
send any directions you wish to Allen & Wlieelock. The Boston 
people have done nobly, especially Mr. Stearns. Dr. Howe has not 
forwarded the articles named in your letter. As soon as received, I 
will place them in the hands of Allen &l Wlieelock. I thouglit it 
best t(j give them your letters, so that they might attend to your re- 
quests understandingly. They will i)e secret. 

Will you allow me to suggest a name for your company ? I should 
call them "the Neighbors," from Luke, tenth chapter: "Which 
thinkest thou was neighbor to hiui who fell among thieves?" 

Our Virginia scheme is gaining strength wonderfully.^ Every 
mail brings me offers of land and men. The press universally favors 
it, — that is, so far as we care for favor. It is bound to go ahead. 
You must have a home in Western Virginia. 
Very truly your friend, 

Eli Thayer. 

Worcester, April 20, 1857. 
John Brown, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Your letter to Mr. Thayer was handed us by him 
with the twenty dollars, and in reply would say that we are very 
sorry we cannot send you the sample revolvers, owing to great delay 
in some of our work, etc. We shall not be able to supply you with 
any at present, and recommend that you obtain Colt's pistols for your 
immediate use. We will send you one or more as soon as we can 
get them ready, if we can know where to send them, and would then 
be glad to supply you with what you may want. We have got the 
large gun ready ; and at the request of Mr. Thayer we have been 
and got the cannon and brought it here ; and are waiting for the rifle 
and pistols that you wrote were to be sent from Dr. Howe, on the 
receipt of which we shall forward them, together with the cannon, 
rifles, etc., as you directed ; which we hope will be safely received in 
due time. Yours truly, 

Allen & Wheelock. 

1 Lest it should he thought that tins refers to Brown's plan for compul- 
sory emancipation (wliieh was not then disclosed), I hasten to say that this 
"Virginia scheme" was a combination of ])olitical campaigning and land 
speculation, which Mr. Thayer' had originated and put in motion at a place 
named by him f'eredo, in AVest Virginia. 



384 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BKOWN. [1867. 

Eli Thayer, whose support of Brown in his most aggres- 
sive measures was at this time cordial and active, was one 
of the chief managers of the Emigrant Aid Company. 
Other managers took a like interest in Brown's character 
or his plans, or in both. Mr. Charles Higginson, a Boston 
cousin of Wentworth Higginson (who was then preaching 
at Worcester), had written somewhat earlier as follows : 

Emigrant Aid Rooms, Boston, Jan. 10, 1857. 
Cafeain John Brown of Osawatomie, 

Dear Sir, — I have a small fund in my hands to be used for the 
benefit of Kansas men. I enclose thirty dollars, with the request 
that you will use it as you see fit, — remembering that you are to 
regard yourself and your sons as entitled to your consideration as 
well as any others. Respectfully yours, 

C. J. HlGGIXSON.^ 

Meantime the Massachusetts Kansas Committee had com- 
pleted the transaction concerning the rifles at Tabor, and 
given Brown the following orders and votes to show his 
authority. The lirst is dated at Boston, Jan. 8, 1857 : 

Dear Sir, — Enclosed we hand you our order on Edward Clark, 
Esq., of Lawrence, K. T., for two hundred Sliarpe's rifled carbines, 
with four thousand ball cartridges, thirty-one thousand military caps, 
and si.x iron ladles, — all, as we suppose, now stored at Tabor in 
the State of It)wa. We wish you to take possession of this property, 
either at Tabor or wherever it may be found, as our agent, and to 
hold it subject to our order. For this purpose you are authorized 
to draw on our treasurer, Patrick T. Jackson, Esq., in Boston, for 
such sums as may be necessary to pay the expenses as they accrue, 
to an amount not exceeding five hundred dollars. 
Truly yours, 

Georoe L. Stearns, 
Chairman Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. 
Mr. John Brown, 

0/ Kansas Territory. 

1 Upon this is the following indorspment in Brown's handwriting : 
"C. J. Higginson, or H. L. Higginson." The latter was a kinsman of 
Charles Higginson ; and has since been known as the wealthy Boston 
banker, who supplies Lis native city with cheap concerts of the best music. 
I suppose he may have handed tlie above note or the money to Captain 
Blown. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 385 

Boston, April 15, 1857. 
Dear Sir, — By the enclosed vote of the 11th instant we place 
in your hands one hundred Sharpe's I'ities to be sold in conformity 
therewith, and wish you to use the proceeds for the benefit of the 
Free-State men in Kansas; keepiug an account of your doings as 
far as practicable. Also a vote placing a further sum of five hun- 
dred dollars at your disposal, for which you can, in need, pass your 
draft on our treasurer, P. T. Jackson, Esq. 
Truly yours, 

George L. Stearns, 
Chairman Massachusetts State Katisas Committee. 
Mu. John Brown, 

Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass. 

Boston, April 15, 1857. 

At a meeting of the executive committee of the State Kansas Aid 
Committee of Massachusetts, held in Boston, April 11, 1857, it was 

Voted, That Captain John Brown be authorized to dispose of one 
huudred rifles, belonging to this committee, to such Free-State inhab- 
itants of Kansas as he thinks to be rehable, at a price not less than 
fifteen dollars ; and that he account for the same agreeably to his 
instructions, for the relief of Kansas. 

At the same meeting it was 

Voted, That Captain John Brown be authorized to draw on P. T. 
Jackson, treasurer, for five huudred dollars, if on his arrival in Kan- 
sas he is satisfied that such sum is necessary for the reUef of persons 
in Kansas. 

George L. Stearns, 
Chairman Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. 

Having assumed so mticli responsibility for the property 
of the committee, Captain Brown, before leaving Boston, 
made the following will for the protection of his friends : 

I, John Brown, of North Elba, N. Y., intending to visit Kansas, 
and knowing the uncertainty of life, make my last will as follows : 
I give and bequeath all trust funds and personal property for the aid 
of the Free-State cause in Kansfis, now in my hands or in the hands 
of W. H. D. Callender, of Hartford, Conn., to George L. Stearns, of 
Medford, Mass., Samuel Cabot, Jr., of Boston, Mass., and William 
H. Russell, of New Haven, Conn., to them and the survivor or sur- 
vivors and their assigns forever, in trust that they will administer 
said funds and other property, including all now collected or hereafter 

25 



386 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

to be collected by me or in my behalf for the aid of the Free-State 
cause in Kansas, leaving the manner of so doing entirely at their 
discretion. 

Signed at Boston, Mass., this 13th day of April, A. D. 1857, in 
presence of us, who, in presence of said Brown and of each other, 
have at his request affixed our names as witnesses of his will. The 
words " and personal property " and " and other property" interlined 
before signature by said Brown, and " said Calleuder," erased. 

(Signed) John Brown. 

Daniel Foster, ^ 

Mary Ellen Russell, > Witnesses. 

Thomas Russell, j 

The purposes of the Massachusetts Committee will be seen 
by the letter of Mr. Stearns to a Xevv York committee, dated 
May 18, 1857. He said : — 

" Since the close of the last year we have confined our operations 
to aiding thtjse persons in Kansas who were, or intended to become, 
citizens of that Territory, — believing that sufficient inducements to 
immigrate existed in the prosperous state of afl'airs there; and we 
now believe that should quiet and prosperity continue there for an- 
other year, the large influx of Northern and Eastern men will secure 
the State for freedom. To insure the present prosperity we propose — 

"1. To have our legislature make a grant of one hundred thousaml 
dollars, to be placed in the hands of discreet persons, who shall use 
it for the relief of those in Kansas who are, or may become, destitute 
through Border-Ruffian outrage. We think it will be done. 

" 2. To organize a secret force, well armed, and under control of 
the famous John Brown, to repel Border-Ruffian outrage and defend 
the Free-State men from all alleged impositions. This organization 
is strictly to be a defensive one. 

"3. To aid by timely donations of money those parties of settlers 
in the Territory who from misfortune are unable to provide for their 
present wants. 

" I am personally acquainted with Captain Brown, and have great 
confidence in his courage, prudence, and good Judgment. He has 
control of the whole affair, including contributions of arms, clotliing, 
etc., to the amount of thirteen thousand dollars. His presence in the 
Territory will, we think, give the P'ree-State men confidence in their 
cause, and also check the dispositi<ra of the Border Ruffians to impose 
on tliem. This I believe to be tlie most important work to be done 
in Kansas at the present time. Many of the Free-State leaders being 
engaged in speculations are mlling to accept peace on any terms. 



■M^ . 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 387 

Brown and his friends will hold to the original principle of making 
Kansas free, without regard to private interests. If you agree with 
me, I should like to have your money appropriated for the use of 
Captain John Brown. If not that, the other proposition, to aid par- 
ties of settlers now in the Territory, will be the next best." 

As has already been mentioned, Captain Brown, in com- 
pany with Martin F. Conway and myself, representing the 
Massachusetts Committee, met by appointment at the Metro- 
politan Hotel in New York late in JNIarch, 1857, and pro- 
ceeded in company to Easton, Penn., where Mr. Eeeder, a 
former governor of Kansas, was living, for the purpose of 
inducing him, if possible, to return to Kansas and become 
the leader of the Free-State party there. The journey was 
undertaken at the request of the ^Massachusetts Committee, 
of which both Brown and Conway were agents. It resulted 
in nothing; for Mr. Keeder was unwilling to leave his 
family and his occupations at Easton to engage again in the 
political contests of Kansas. Captain Brown had quite a 
different conception of his own duty to his family, as com- 
pared with his duty to the cause. Although he had been 
absent from home nearly two years, he refrained from a visit 
to North Elba, where his family then were, until he had ar- 
ranged his military affairs in Boston and New York ; and he 
finally reached his rough mountain home late in February. 
He found his daughter Ellen, whom he had left an infant 
in the cradle, old enough to hear him sing his favorite hymn, 
" Blow ye the trumpet, blow ! " to the old tune of Lenox. 
" He sung all his own children to sleep with it," writes 
his daughter Anne, "■ and some of his grandchildren, too. 
He seemed to be very partial to the first verse ; I think that 
he applied it to himself. "When he was at home (I think it 
was the first time he came from Kansas), he told Ellen that 
he had sung it to all the rest, and must to her, too. She was 
afraid to go to him alone [the poor child had forgotten her 
father in his tw^o years' absence], so father said that I 
must sit with her. He took Ellen on one knee and me on 
the other and sung it to us." His sons were now inclined 
to give up war and remain at North Elba, and so his wife 
wrote him, March 21. He replied : — 



388 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857 



To his Wife. 

SpPtiNGFiELD, Mass., March 31, 1857. 

Dear Wife, — Your letter of the 21st is just received. I have 
only to say as regards the resolution of the boys to '' learn and prac- 
tice war no more,'' that it was not at my solicitation that they en- 
gaged in it at first ; and that while I may ])erhaps feel no more love 
of the business than they do, still I think there may be possibly in 
their day what is more to be dreaded, if such things do not now 
exist. ... I have just got a long letter from Mr. Adair. All 
middling well, March 11, but had fears of further trouble after a 
while. 

Your affectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

He found means to overcome the reluctance of his chil- 
dren to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the slave, and 
this in spite of many discouragements of his own. In reply 
to Mr. Adair, he wrote this short note : — 

Springfield, Mass., March 31, 1857. 
Dear Brother and Sister Adair, — I received Mr. Adair's 
most welcome letter to-day, and am greatly obliged for it indeed. I 
also yesterday saw your letter to Mr. Burt, at Canton, Conn. Mr. 
Burt died in January. In him truth, riglit, and humanity lost a 
faithful friend. I have but a moment to write, and but little to say 
that would afford you any interest, except that friends are well, so far 
as I know, and that I thiuk of going West somewhere, soon. The 
excitement is gettiug up this way in view of Supreme Court pro- 
ceedings.* Walker's appointment as governor of Kansas, etc. May 
God still preserve and keep y<'U all! 

Youi' affectionate brother, 

John Brown. 

It was about this time that Brown made the unlucky 
acquaintance of Hugh Forbes, was pleased with him, and 
engaged him to drill his soldiers at a salary of one hundred 
dollars a month, even going so far as to pay him six hun- 
dred dollars in advance, early in April. INFr. Callender, of 
the State Bank in Hartford, thus testified before Senator 
Mason's committee : — 

1 The Dred Scott decision. 



1857.] THE KAXSAS COMMITTEES. 389 

" I had instructions from Mr. Brown to pay Forbes six hundred 
dolhirs ; that was about the 1st of April, 1857 ; the two drafts I have 
witli nie. 

[Tlie witness produced two drafts, which are in the following words and 
figures : — 
No.—. $400. New York, April 27, 1857. 

At sight, pay to the order of Ketchum, Howe, & Co. four hundred dol- 
lars, value received, and charge the same to account of 

(Signed) Hugh Forbes. 

Indorsed : Cr. our account, 

Ketchum, Howe, & Co. 

No. — . $200, New York, April 29, 1857. 

Pay to the order of Ketchum, Howe, & Co. two hundred dollars, value 
received, and charge the same to account of 

(Signed) Hugh Forbes. 

"VV. H. D. Callender, Esq., Hartford, Conn.] 

" Mr. Brown told me that Mr. Forbes might draw upon me for six 
hundred dollars; that was about the 1st of April, 1857 ; these drafts 
soon afterwards came on, and I paid them. Brown furnished me, I 
think, with four hundred dollars, which came from Springfield." 

The fish had swallowed the golden hook, but it was not 

easy to " land " him. He should have followed Brown to 

the West in May, but he loitered in ISTew York, and Brown 

. was forced to warn him as follows. Mr. Callender says : — 

■ 

f'- '' Here is an order drawn by John Brown, dated the 22d of June, 

! 1857, upon Colonel H. Forbes, at New York City, in these words : 

' Sir, — If you have drawn on W. H. D. Callender, Esq., cashier at 
Hartford, Conn., for six hundred dollars, or any part of that amount, and 
are not prepared to come on and join me at once, you will please pay over to 
Joseph Bryant. Esq., who is my agent, six hundred dollars, or whatever 
amount you have so drawn.' 

'' The indorsement on it is, 

' I did not present this to the colonel, as I presumed it would be of no 
use ; and then he is, I am persuaded, acting on good faith. 

(Signed) Joseph Bryant.'" 

Forbes was printing his precious Manual in 'New York, 
and also enjoying the advantages of the city, instead of 
hurrying away to the prairies. Mr. Bryant at various dates 
thus reports him : — 



I 



390 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

June 1. I this day saw your friend Colonel Forbes ; he is trying 
to raise funds to get his family brought to this country, but I fear he 
will not succeed very well. I will have, when collected, some six 
dollars only in my hands ; this I intend passing into his hands. I 
may get a few dollars more, but the prospects are not very good here 
at present to raise money. The colonel says he is getting along well 
in getting his printing done (and is losing no time). 

June 16. I called on the colonel last night ; found him well, ex- 
cept very anxious about getting his family to this country. He is 
not ready to join you ; thinks nothing will be needed out West be- 
fore winter, — not till Congress have met and acted in favor of the 
constitution about being framed ; so he thinks. He is getting along, 
he tells me, as fast as possible with his book ; will have it ready in 
about ten days ; has as yet raised no funds to pay the passage of his 
family. Thinks they will have to come in the third class passage, 
which grieves him very much, as his wife is not in good health. I 
had promised what money was in my hands to defray the expenses of 
publishing his book ; this I promised him on account of your intro- 
duction to me of him. 

June 25. Yours of the 22d was duly received by me on yesterday, 
and I, according to your request, called on the colonel. I learned that 
he intends to leave here to j(.iin you in about ten days (certainhj , barring 
accidents). I learned, too, that he had drawn the money, and I tliink 
it is pretty well used up by this time. I did not say anything about 
his refunding, as he assured me, in the most positive way he could, 
that he would set out as soon as he got his book finished, which 
would be done in about a vreek. He says he is as anxious as you are 
to do everything that can be done; but he still thinks that there will 
be no need of action before winter. Yet he admitted it was best to be 
ready; and he thinks his book of extracts is all-important, — a part of 
the necessary tools to work with. He has given up the idea of get- 
ting his family over to this country, and is about sending his daugliter 
back to her mother. She will leave in a few days. He sent his 
family (I understood from himself) about one hundred and twenty 
d(dlars some time ago of the money he drew, and I suppose it will 
take some hundred dollars for his daughter to go home on ; yet I 
think the colonel is acting in good faith, and is an honorable man. 

The character of Hugh Forbes and his final connection 
with Brown will be considered hereafter. It is enough to 
say, now, that he was unfitted for the work given him to do, 
and that the money paid to him was worse than thrown 
away ; yet the lack of this sum - — six or seven hundred 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 391 

dollars — embarrassed Brown at every step of his course in 
the Slimmer of 1857, and prevented his reaching Kansas 
until late in the year. Meantime his friends there were 
expecting him, and he was corresponding with them at in- 
tervals. Through one of these friends, Augustus Wattles, 
then living at Lawrence, he sent messages to others ; and 
one of these letters expresses so pungently his opinion of 
Kansas affairs in the early spring of 1857, that I will quote 
it here : — 

Boston, Mass., April 8, 1857. 

My dear Sir, — Your favor of the 15th March, and that of friend 
Holmes of the 16th, I have just received. I cannot express my grati- 
tude for them both. Tliey give nie just that kind of news I was most 
of all things anxious to hear. I bless God that he has not left the 
Free-State men of Kansas to pollute themselves by the foul and 
loathsome embrace of the old rotten whore. I have been trembling 
all along lest they might "back down" from the high and lioly 
ground they had taken. I say, in view of the wisdom, firmness, and 
patience of my friends and fellow-sufierers in the cause of humanity, 
let God's name be eternally praised ! I would most gladly give my 
hand to all whose " garments are not defiled ; " and I humbly trust 
that I shall soon again have opportunity to rejoice (or suffer further 
if need be) with you in the strife between heaven and hell. I wisli 
to send my most cordial and earnest salutation to every one of the 
chosen. My efforts this way have not been altogether fruitless. I 
wish you and friend Holmes both to accept this for the moment ; may 
write soon again, and hope to hear from you both at Tabor, Fremont 
County, Iowa, — care of Jonas Jones, Esq. 
Your sincere friend, 

Nelson Hawkins. 

Augustus Wattles, Esq., Lawrence, K. T. 

" Friend Holmes " was Brown's youngest lieutenant, who 
thus wrote to him after he had left New England for North 
Elba : — 

Letters of J. H. Holmes to John Bro^on. 

Lawrence, Kansas, April 30, 1857. 

My dear friend Brown, — I have been anxiously expecting to 
hear from you direct, but have only heard througli Mr. Wattles. I 
want to see you as soon as possible after you arrive in the Territory. 



392 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

I have settled at Emporia, six miles above tlie junction of the Neo- 
sho and the Cottonwood. My address is either Emporia or Law- 
rence, as you may choose. My letters all come and go safe. War, ere 
six months shall have passed away, is inevitable. Secretary Stanton 
has made a public speech in Lawrence, and says that those laws (the 
bogus) shall be enforced, and that the taxes shall be paid. The peo- 
ple shout, '' Never ! " " Then," he says, " there is war between you 
and me, — war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt." There will be 
no voting ; no paying of taxes ; and I think the Free-State men will 
remove the Territorial Government and set up tlieir own. Then we 
want you. Please write. All your friends, as far as I know, are 
well. Very truly yours, 

James H. Holmes.^ 

This letter was immediately followed by another, in 
which Holmes opens a little of the mystery of Kansas pol- 
itics in this third year of the struggle there : — 

L.\ WHENCE, Kax., 3 o'clock, p. M., April 30, 1857. 

Dear friend Brown, — This morning I received your letter 
which came by the way of Tabor, and also your letter which came 
through the mail. I had previously written you a short letter. I 
now write to let you know that I have received them, and to an- 
swer them hastily ; though I presume you will leave S{»ringfield for 
Kansas ere this reaches you. I do not think there is any disposition 
to " back down" by the Free-State men, other than by the specu- 
lators ; and they are, as a class, never to be relied on, of course. I 
have full faith in the virtue of the Free-State men of Kansas. You 
have something to learn in the political world here. 

You will hear of me either at Lawrence, through J. E. Cook, of the 
firm of Bacon, Cook, & Co., or I may be at Emporia, where I have 
taken a claim and make it my home. At any rate. Cook can tell 
you where I may be. A case has recently occurred of kidnapping a 
Free-State man, which is this : Archibald Kandell, a young fellow 
who came in with Redpath under Eldridge, last fall, and has been 
all winter on a claim near Osawatomie, was some two weeks since 
enticed out under pretence of trading horses, by four men, and 
abducted into Missouri. Archy was in my company, and is a good 

1 Holmes was at this time nineteen years old, the son of a New York 
broker, and had gone to Kansas to aid the cause of freedom. He has since 
been a journalist, and under President Lincohi was secretary of New 
Mexico. Brown used to call him "my little hornet." 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 393 

brave fellow. How long he is to remain incarcerated and in chains I 
will u(jt in this place and time attempt to predict. 

Judge Conway is here, radical and riglit. Dr. Robinson recently 
made a proposition with some leading proslavery men to compro- 
mise. The Free-State men won't do it. We are talking of running 
Phillips for governor next fall. 

Very truly your constant friend, 

James. 

This letter was months in reaching Brown, who did not 
answer it until September 9. Mr. Wattles wrote in the 
summer, touching upon matters political, and in reply to a 
second letter from Brown, who was meditating his proposed 
attack on slavery in Missouri, and for this time called him- 
self "James Smith," instead of "Hawkins." 

John Brown to A. Wattles. 

Hudson', Ohio, June 3, 1857. 
My dear Sir, — I write to say that I started for Kansas some 
three weeks or more since, but have been obliged to stop for the 
fever and ague. I am now righting up, and expect to be on my way 
again soon. Free-State men need have no fear of my desertion. 
There are some half-dozen men I want a visit from at Tabor, Iowa, 
to come off in the most quiet way ; namely, Daniel Foster, late of 
Boston, Massachusetts ; Holmes, Frazee, a Mr. Hill, and William 
David, on Little Ottawa Creek ; a Mr. Cochran, on Pottawatomie 
Creek ; or I would like equally well to sec Dr. Updegraff and S. H. 
Wright, of Osawatomie ; or William Phillips, or Conway, or your 
honor. I have soine very important matters to confer with some of 
you about. Let there be no words about it. Should any of you come 
out to see me, wait at Tabor if you get there first. Mr. Adair, at 
Osawatomie, may supply fifty dollars (if need be) for expenses, on 
my account, on presentation of this. Write me at Tabor, Iowa, 
Fremont County. Very respectfully yours, 

James Smith. ^ 

^ The persons mentioned in this letter were supposed by Brown to be 
specially friemlly and true to him. Foster was a clergyman, formerly set- 
tled at Concord, Mass., but then in Kansas. Holmes was Brown's lieu- 
tenant in 1856, and afterward in 1858-59. Frazee was Brown's teamster 
and sohlier in 1856, and fought at Black Jack, as did B. I^. Cochran. Dr. 
Updegraff fought at Osawatomie. Concerning David, Hill, and Wright 
I have little information. Phillips was afterwards Congressman. 



394 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

The Rephj. 

Lawkexce, K. T., June 18, 1857. 
James Smith, Esq. 

Dkar Sir, — Your favor of the 3d iustaut was duly received. I 
am much pleased to hear from you. We talked over matters here, and 
concluded to say, come as quietly as possible, or not come at present, 
as you may choose. Holmes is at Emporia, plowing ; Conway is 
here, talking polities ; Phillips is here, trying to urge the Free-State 
men to galvanize the Topeka constitution into life. Dr. Robinson's 
absence at the assembliug of the Free-State Legislature last winter 
dispirited tlie Free-State party. It is difficult to*make them rally 
again under him. Foster I do not know. Frazee has not returned. 
The others are as you left them. We are prospering finely. You 
will hear much against G. W. Brown and the " Herald of Freedom," 
but be careful about believing it. Brown is as good as ever. 
Most truly your friend, 

Augustus Wattles.^ 

Ill reply to a letter of Brown, sent" in August from 
Tabor, Mr. Wattles wrote again on Kansas politics, and 
more definitely. 

Letters from Kansas FHends. 

Lawuence, K. T., Aug. 21, 1857. 

Dear Sir — Your favor of August 8 came duly to hand, as did 
yours to Dr. Prentice. The business you speak of was put into the 
hands of Mr. Realf. Mr. Whitman and Mr. Edmonds ^ are both 
gone East. In regard to other inquiries, I can hardly tell you satis- 
factorily. I think Dr. Robinson's failure to meet the legislature 
last winter disheartened the people so that they lost confidence iu 
him and in the movement. Although in the Convention we invited 
him to withdraw his resignation (which he did), yet the masses 
could never be vitalized again into that enthusiasm and confidence 
which they had before. Another mistake which he made, equally 
fatal, was his attack upon George W. Brown and the *' Herald of 
Freedom ; " thus leading off his friends into a party by themselves, 
and leaving all who doubted and hated him in another party. This 
war between the leaders settled the question of resistance to outside 

1 Lidor.sed by John Brown: "A. Wattles, No. 2. Requires no reply." 

2 Two names for the same man. 



1857. J THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 395 

autliurity at once. Those who had eutertaiued the idea of resistance 
liave entirely abandoned it. Dr. Robinson was not alone in his blun- 
ders. Colonel Lane, Mr. Phillips, and " The Republican " made 
equally fatal ones. Colonel Lane boasted in his public speeches 
tliat the Constitutional Convention would be driven into the Kaw 
River, etc., by violence. Mr. Phillips boasted this, and much more, 
in the " New York Tribune." " The Republican" boasted that old 
Captain Brown would be down on Governor Walker and Co. like an 
avenging god, etc. This excited Walker and others to that degree 
they at once took refuge under the United States troops. Whatever 
might have been intended, much more was threatened and boasted 
of than could possibly have been performed, unless there was an 
extensive conspiracy. This, I believe. Governor Walker says was 
the case. 

I saw Conway to-day. He says he thinks all will go off quietly 
at the election. Phillips, you will see by the " Tribune," has come 
out in favor of voting in October. They intend to cheat us ; but we 
expect to beat them. Walker is as fair as he can be, under the 
circumstances. Yours truly, 

A. Wattles.^ 

A few days earlier than this letter was written, Holmes, 
who differed a little from Wattles, sent a word of warning 
to his captain, along with other information, thus : — 

Lawrence, K. T., Aug. 16, 1857. 

My dear Friend, — I received your letter of the 8th inst. yes- 
terday. I am glad to hear that you are so near. Messrs. Realf, 
Phillips, and Wattles also received letters from you yesterday. I 
have a word of caution to say in regard to Mr. Wattles. He is a 
friend whom I most highly esteem ; yet he is so connected in politics 
that I think it unsafe for you to communicate to him any plans you 
would not like to communicate directly to Governor Walker. For 
this reason : Mr. Wattles is under George W. Brown ; and both be- 
lieve in submitting in good faith, under Governor Walker, to the Ter- 
ritorial authorities. Governor Walker comes to town frequently, and 
stops at the "Herald of Freedom" office, in secret conclave with 
G. W. Brown. When you come here (if you should), you can judge 
for yourself. 

^ Indorsed by John Brown : " A. Wattles, No. 6." The rest of these 
letters are not in my hands. The election mentioned was to occur in 
October, and was carried by the Free-State men. "Walker" was the 
oew Governor, — R. J, Walker, of Pennsylvania. 



396 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

Messrs. Phillips, Wattles, and Realf I have seen ; they will write 
to you themselves, and I will merely give you my own mind ou 
the subject. T do not know what you would have me infer by 
"business."' I presume, though, by the word being emphasized, 
that you refer to tlie business for which I learn you have a stock of 
material with you. If you mean this, I think quite strongly of a 
good(?) opening for this business about the first Monday in October ^ 
next. If you wish other employments, I presume you will find just 
as profitable ones. I am sorry that you have not been here in the 
TeiTitory before. I think that the sooner you come the better, so 
that the people and the Territorial authorities may become familiar- 
ized with your presence. This is also the opinion of all other friends 
with whom I have conversed on this subject. You could thus exert 
more influence. Several times we have needed you very much. I 
have much to communicate to you, wliich I cannot do througli this 
medium ; therefore you must try to let me know of your approach 
or arrival as soon as possible, through Mr. Phillips, or through tlie 
Lawrence postoffice. I presume Mr. PhiUips wrote to you in re- 
gard to teams and means, wliich, as Mr. Whitman is now East, will 
be, I fear, scarce. 

Most sincerely your friend, 

James H. Holmes. 



This letter was directed to " Captain Brown," and so was, 
perhaps, sent by a safe messenger ; for the Free-State men 
had much distrust of the mails. This was one reason for 
the change of names which John Brown adopted ; another 
was, that he was still proscribed in Kansas, as he had been 
in 1856, and might be arrested at any time by the Terri- 
torial authorities. Mr. Whitman wrote to him soon after, 
and wishing to free him from this anxiety, chose as his 
messenger the Englishman Realf, of w-hom we shall soon 
hear more : — 

Laavrenpe, June 30, 1857. 
Dear Sir, — I send you by the bearer, Richard Realf, one hun- 
dred and fifty dcJlars, minus the reasonable expenses of the messen- 
ger on liis way up. You will please make arrangements for him to 
return with you. Your friends are desirous of, seeing you. The 
dangers that threatened tlie Territory and individuals liave been 
removed, in the shape of quashed indictments. Your furniture can 

1 Election day. 



1857.J THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. Zil 

be brought and safely stored while you are seeking a location ; and 
your famihj can find board among the settlers. Hoping to see you 
soon in good health, I remain, as ever, 

Yours truly, E. B. W. 

To Captain' Brown. 

Mr. Phillips, afterward in Congress from Kansas, and a 
general during the Civil War, wrote thus : — 

Lawkexce, K. T., June 24, 1857. 

My dear Fkiexd, — I received your letter, dated from Ohio the 
9th instant, a few days ago. I fear I shall not be able to meet you 
at Tabor. I have just received (on the 13th) the task of superin- 
tending and taking the census for the State election. As means are 
limited, those who can must do this. I have therefore assumed the 
task, which will require my presence and most active efforts until the 
15th of July. I have tried to arrange it so as to get off for a \^eek ; 
but it is impossible without a sacrifice of duty. Should it be so, or 
if no one else can go, I will still try. Holmes I have seen ; he is 
busy, and will not be able to come up. Several of those you men- 
tioned are gone, and others cannot go to Tabor. I sent a message 
to Osawatomie, and enclosed your letter to Mr. Adair ; told him that 
Holmes and the others could not go, and urged that some go from 
Osawatomie, if possible. I have not yet heard from him. I start 
to Osawatomie when I finish this ; I will make it on my round, ap- 
pointing deputies and taking the census. Two young men from 
this place have promised me that they will go if possible ; but they 
have no horses, and horses cannot be hired for such a journey. I 
still hope to have a few friends at Tabor to meet you in a week. 

As to your future action, for fear I should be jirevented from going 
to )neet you, let me say I think you should come into Kansas, pro- 
vided you desire to do so. I think it will be our duty to see you 
protected. There is no necessity for active military preparations at 
this time ; but so far as you have the elements of defence at your 
command, I think they are safer tcith you than ivith any one else. 
Your old claim has, I believe, been jumped. If you do not desire to 
contest it, let me suggest that you make a new settlement at some 
good point, of which you will be the head. Lay off a town and take 
claims around it. You would thus rally round you a class of useful 
men, who could be prepared for an emergency at the same time that 
they furthered their own interests, which they have a right to do. 
Any information I could render as to the best sites or otherwise you 
may cheerfully call upon. Should I not be able to come to meet you, 
I h(jpe at least to see you shortly after you enter. I have not time to 



398 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

detail the preseut coudition of the Free-State party. Until I see 
you, adieu. Respectfully, 

William A. Phillips. 
James Smith. i 

Mr. Whitman's messenger reached Tabor nearly a month 
before Brown got there, and went back to Kansas again, 
leaving this note : — 

Tabor, Iowa, July 6, 1857. 
John Brown, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — I arrived here to-day from Lawrence, bringing $150, 
minus my expenses up and down. These will amount to about $40, 
leaving you $110. Mr. Whitman could not, as you will see from his 
note signed "Edmunds," spai'e you more; and the mule team you 
asked fur could not be procured. I am sorry you have not arrived : 
I should like to have gone back with you. The Governor has in- 
structed the Attorney-General of Kansas to enter a nolle prosequi in 
the case of the Free-State prisoners ; so that you need be under no 
apprehension of insecurity as to yourself or the munitions you may 
bring with you. By writing a line to me or Mr. Whitman or Phil- 
lips at Lawrence immediately on your arrival here, we will come 
and meet you by way of Topeka. God speed you ! 

Truly, Richard Realf. 

Brown reported to me at the end of September his prog- 
ress then made, as follows : — 

Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, Oct. 1, 1857. 
F. B. Sanborn, Concord, Mass. 

My dear Sir, — Two days since I received your very kind letter 
of the 14th September; also one from James Hunnewell, Esq., say- 
ing he had sent me $72.68 through P. T. Jackson, Esq., of Boston ; 
for both wliich I am very glad."^ I cannot express my gratitude for 

1 Indorsed by John Brown : "William A. Phillips. Requires no reply. 
No. 1." The tone of this letter shows how Brown was regarded in Kaiis.as 
as the custodian of arms, — which, of course, was the "furniture" men- 
tioned by Mr. Whitman. 

- This note explains tlie .source and object of tins seasonable contri- 
bution : — • 

Boston, Sept. 14, 1857. 
Nelson Hawkins, Esq., care of Jonas Jones, Tabor, Iowa. 

Deau Sir, — By order of the (Mass.) MitMlesex County Kansas Aid Committee, I 
have sent to you through P. T. Jackson, Esq., treasurer of tlie State Conmiittee, $72.68, 
" to be aiipropriated to the use of Captain John Brown, now at Tabor, Iowa, in support 
of the cause of freedom in Kansas." 

Very respectfully yours, 

James Hunnewell, 
Treasurer of Middlesex County Kansas Aid Committee, 



I 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 399 

your earnest and early attention to my wants and those of my family. 
I regret that Mr. Huunewell did not at once send me either a check 
or a draft on New York or Boston, as it will probably be one month 
or more before I can realize it ; and I have not the means of paying 
my board bill here, not having as yet received anything from Mr. 
Whitman toward a balance of live hundred dollars, nor heard from 
him. If I get the money from Mr. Hunnewell and Mr. Whituiau, it 
will answer my present wants, except the secret service I wrote you 
about. I have all the arms I am likely to need, but am destitute 
of saddle-bags or knapsacks, holsters and belts; have only a few 
blankets, no shovels or spades, no mattocks, but three or four adzes 
(ought to have been one hundred), and am nearly destitute of cook- 
ing utensils. The greater part of what I have just named I must do 
without till another spring, at any rate. I fouud here one brass 
fiekl-piece complete, and one damaged gun-carriage, with some am- 
munition suitable for it ; some seventy to seventy-five old damaged 
United States riHes and nmskets, one dozen old sabres, some powder 
and lead (enough for present use; weight not known), — I suppose 
sent by National Committee. Also one dozen boxes and barrels of 
clothing, boots, etc., with three hand gristmills, sent to Nebraska 
City, from same source. I also got from Dr. Jesse Bowen, of Iowa 
City, one old waguu, which broke down with a light load on the 
way; also nine full-rigged tents, three sets tent-poles (additional), 
eleven pairs blankets, and three axes, sent there by National Com- 
mittee. Also from Mr. Hurd I got an order for fifty dollars' worth 
of tents, wagon-covering, ropes, etc., at Chicago, which was paid 
me. I find one hundred and ninety-four carbines, about thirty-three 
hundred ball cartridges, all the primers, but no iron ladles. This, I 
believe, with the teams and wagon I purchased, will give you a pretty 
good idea of the stuff I have. I had a gun and pair of pistols giveu 
me by Dr. Howe, and some three or four guns made for experiment 
by Mr. Thayer (a little cannon and carriage is one of them), and one 
nice rifle by the manufacturing company at Worcester.^ I had also 
a few revolvers, common guns, and sabres left on hand, that I took 
on with me in 185.5. While waiting here I and my son have been 
trying to learn a little of the arts of peace from Coh)nel F., who is 
still with us. Tliat is the school I alluded to. 

Before I readied here, I had written particularly to friends in 
Kansas, saying that I wanted help to meet me here, and to wait for 
me should I be detained on the way. I also arranged with Mr. • 
Whitman in regard to it in Chicago. He sent one man with one 
hundred and fifty dollars ; forty of it he kept, and went immediately 

^ These are the arms mentioned in Eli Thayer's letters. 



400 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BK(JWN. [1857. 

back. From that time I send you copies of some of the correspon- 
dence between Kansas and me, as rather essential to give you a 
correct idea of things in connection with my statements yet to be 
made. When I got on here I immediately wrote Mr. Whitman 
and several others what was my situation and wants. He (Mr. 
Whitman) has not written me at all since what 1 send. Others 
have written, as you will see. I wrote the man Mr. Whitman 
sent me, among the rest, but get no word from him since what I 
now send. 

As to the policy of voting on Monday next, I think Lane hit his 
mark at the convention of Grasshopper's, if never before ; I mean 
"An escape into the filthy sluice of a prison." I had not been aide 
to learn by papers or otherwise distinctly what course had been taken 
in Kansas till within a few days; and probably the less I have to 
say, the better. 

I omitted above to say that I paid out five hundred and fifty dol- 
lars on a contract for one thousand superior pikes, as a cheap but 
effectual weapon to place in the hands of entirely unskilful and un- 
practised men, wliich will not easily get out of order, and require no 
ammunitidu. They will cost, handles and all complete, a little short 
of one dollar each. That contract I have not been able to fulfil ; and 
wise military men may ridicule the idea; but "I take the whole 
responsibility of that job," — so that I can only get them. 

On hearing that Lane had come into Nebraska, I at once sent a 
young man with a line, saying I had been hurt, and was exceedingly 
anxious to see him early in September. To this he sent me no reply, 
unless Redpath's letter be one. I am now so far recovered from my 
hurt as to be able to do a little ; and foggy as it is, " we do not give 
up the ship." I will not say that Kansas, watered by the tears and 
blood of my children, shall yet be free or I fall. I intend at once to 
put the supplies I have in a secure place, and then to put myself and 
such as may go with me where we may get more speedy communi- 
cations, and can wait until we know better how to act than we now 
do. I send this whole package to you, thinking Concord a less oflVn- 
sive name just now than Boston at this end of the route. I wish tlie 
whole c(mveyed to my friend Stearns and other friends, as old Brown's 
last report. 

Until further advised, I wish all communications addressed to Jonas 
Jones, Esq., Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, outwardbj ; and I hope 
you will all write often. 

I had forgotten to say, that day before yesterday one single man, 
with no team at all, came from Lane to have me start at once for 
Kansas, as you will see by copies. Ho said he had left ten fine 
fellows about thirty miles back. The names he gave me were all 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 401 

strange to me, as well as himself. Tabor folks (some of them) 
speak slightingly of him, notwithstanding that he too is a general. 

October 3, 1857. 
Yours, covering check, is this moment to hand, and will ati'ord 
most seasonable relief. Express goes to K. at once to see liow the 
land lies. You will hear again soon. 

Yours most truly, 

J. Brown. 

The following correspondence will find its key in the 
letter just given. General Lane was at the head of the 
organization mentioned, and Mr. Whitman was his quarter- 
master-general. 

{Piiiate.) 

Lawrence, Sept. 7, 1857. 
Sir, — We are earnestly engaged in perfecting an organization for 
the protection of the ballot-box at the October election (first Mon- 
day). Whitman and Abbot have been East after money and arms 
for a month past; they write encouragingly, and will be back in a 
few days. We want you, with all tiie materials you have. I see no 
objection to your coming into Kansas publicly. I can furnish you 
just such a force as you may deem necessary for your protection here 
and after your arrival. I went up to see you, but failed. Now what 
is wanted is this : write me concisely what transportation you require, 
how much money, and the number of men needed to escort you into 
the Territory safely ; and if you desire it I will come up with them. 
Yours respectfully, 

J. H. Lane. 
To Captain John Brown, Tabor. 

Brown's answer was as follows : — 

Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, Sept. 16, 1857. 
General James H. Lane. 

My dear Sir, — Your favor of the 7th inst. is received. I had 
previously written you expressive of my strong desire to see you. I 
suppose you have my letter before this. As to the job of work you 
inquire about, I suppose that three eood teams, with irell covered 
wagons, and ten realh/ inffeniotis, inditstnous (not f/as.'^)/) men, with 
about one hundred and fifty dollars in cash, could bring it about 
in the course of eight or ten days. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 
26 



402 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

This letter was returned to Brown by Mr. Jamison, Sep- 
tember 30, and the following note from General Lane came 
with it. Falls City is in southern Nebraska, comparatively 
near Tabor. In addressing Brown as " Dear General,'' 
Lane had in mind the fact that he had made Brown a brig- 
adier of the new army which Lane had organized : — 

Falls City, Sept. 29, IS.")?. 

Dear General, — I send you Mr. Jamison (qiiartennastor-gen- 
eral second division), to assist you in getting your articles into Kan- 
sas in time. Mr. VVliitman wrote us a week ago he would be at 
Wyandotte yesterday, and that he was supplied witli the things ; but 
he had not arrived when 1 left. It is all- important to Kansas that 
your things should be in at the earliest possible moment, and that you 
should be much nearer at hand than you are. I send you all the money 
I have (fifty dollars), and General Jamison has some more. We 
want every gun and all the ammunition. I do not know that we will 
have to use them, but I do know we should be prepared. I send you 
ten true men. You can rely upon the General; and what he tells 
you couK's from me. Yours ever, 

J. H. Lane. 

To General John Brown, Tabor. 

To this Brown replied : — 

Taboi:, Fremont County, Iowa, Sept. 30, 1857. 
General James H. Lane. 

My dear Sir, — Your favor from Falls City by Mr. Jamison is 
just received; also fifty dollars sent by him, which I also return by 
same hand, as I find it will be next to impossible in my p)oor state of 
health to go through on such very short notice, four days only remain- 
ing to get ready, load up, and go through. I think, eonsiderinc: all 
the uncertainties of the case, want of teams, etc., that I should do 
wrong to set out. I am disappointed in the extreme.^ 

Very respectfully your friend, John Brown. 

John Brown to E. B. JVhitman. 

Taror, Fremont County, Iowa, Oct. 5, 1857. 
E. B. "Wititman, Fsq. 

Dear Sir, — Please send me by ^fr. Charles P. Tidd what money 

you have for me, — not papers. He is the second man I have sent in 

1 Brown ex]ilnin(Ml this refusal to roniplv with Lane's veipiest in his letter 
to me of October 1, already given, as well as in the letter which follows. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 403 

order to get the means of taking me thn)Ugli, General Lane sent a 
man who got here without any team, with but fifty dollars of Lane's 
money (as he saidj, which I returned to him, and wanted me to start 
right off, with only four days' time to load up and drive through before 
this bogus election day, — which my state of health and the very wet 
weather rendered it impossible to do in time; and I did not think it 
right to start from here under such circumstances. D(j try to make 
me up the money, all in good shape, before Mr. Tidd returns, and 
also write me everything you know about the aspect of things in 
Kansas. Please furnisli Mr. Tidd with a horse to take him to Osa- 
watomie, and greatly oblige me. The fifty dollars Lane sent was 
only about enough to pay up my board bill here, witli all I had ou 
hand. / need not say my disappointments have been extreme. 
Your friend, 

John Brown. 

P. S. Before any teams are now sent, I want to hear further from 
Kansas. 

What was the object of Lane's organization will appear 
by Mr. Whitman's report below : — 

{Order No. 2.) 

Quartermaster's Department, Headquarters Kansas 

Volunteers for the Protection of the Ballot-box, 

Lawrence, Oct. 19, 1857. 

Whereas, On the .3d day of August an order was issued from this 
department requesting the appointment of company, brigade, and 
division qnarteruiasters, and an immediate return to be made of the 
number and description of all arms available for the use of the respec- 
tive companies; and ichereas, said returns have been generally made : 
Now, therefore, in reply, and in explanation of the failure to furnish 
an entire supply for the deficiency, it is deemed proper to declare, that 
while no efforts were spared by this department, and by the entire 
staff, promptly to supply the necessary quota of arms, yet the unex- 
pected obstacles which the great financial pressure threw in their 
way have prevented the anticipated success for the time being. It 
is, however, a cause for congi-atulation, that while the reports show 
a considerable deficiency, yet the entire armament is by no means 
insignificant. 

The immense immigration of the past year, composed largely of 
those wlio deceived l)y official promises of protection had anticipated 
no occasion for personal defence, readily accounts for this deficiency. 
In our disappointment we may rejnice tliat tlie effect of the organiza- 



404 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857 

tion, with all its imperfectiuiis, has beeu in the highest degree satis- 
factory. The knowledge that an outraged people had at length 
banded themselves together, almost to a man, for the protection of 
the most sacred rights of freemen, and were ready to die in theii- de- 
fence, has most manifestly deterred an organized invasi<in. Voting- 
lists ready manufactured and false returns have beeu made to supply 
its place ; against this the organization could afford no protection. 

It remains to be seen whetlier the people of Kansas will have any 
further use for this organization. It is always true that the surest 
way to prevent an evil is to be prepared to meet it, and three years' 
experience in the past should teach us not to indulge in any pre- 
mature feelings of security and safety. In view of possible contin- 
gencies, this department liereby announces that it will still continue 
its exertions to furnish the means of protection and defence to all who 
may be destitute of them, and in all cases iirst to supply those locali- 
ties most exposed to invasion and attack. 

E. B. Whitman, 
Qiiarteniiaster-Gciicral Kaunas Volunteers. 

Approved : J. H. Lane, Organiser. 

Mr. Whitman replied as follows to Brown's letter of 

October 5 : — 

Lawrence, Oct. 24, 1857. 

My dear Friend, — Your first two messengei-s are sick at 
Tecumseh. I helped them start back with the information that you 
should soon hear from me, but they were taken sick on their way. 
Mr. Tidd has been waiting some time for me to receive remittances 
from the East ; but as the crisis approaches I feel in a huiTy to get 
him off. You are wanted here a week from Tuesday. I will wait 
no longer, but by great personal exertion have raised on my personal 
responsibility one hundred and fifty dollars. General Lane will send 
teams from Falls City, so that you may get your goods all in. 
Leave none behind if you can lielp it. Come direct to this place and 
see me before you make any disposition of your jdunder, except to 
keep it safe. Make the Tabor peojde wait for wliat you owe them. 
Tliei/ must. Make the money I send answer to ^et liere, and I hope 
by that time to have more for you. IMr. Tidd will explain all. 
Very truly yours, 

E. B. Whitman.' 

Finally, this correspondence closes with a letter from 
Lane. 

' Indorsed by Brown : "Received at Tabor, Nov. L" 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 405 

Falls City, Oct. 30, 1857. 

Dear Sir, — By great sacrifice we have raised, and send by Mr. 
Tidd, one hundred and fifty dcdlars. I trust this money will be used 
to get the guns to Kansas, or as near as possible. If you can get 
them to this point, we will try to get them on in some way. The 
jirobability is Kansas will never need the guns. One thing is cer- 
tain : if they are to do her any good, it will be in the next few days. 
Let nothing interfere in bringing them on. 

Yours, J. H. Lane. 

Brown accepted this invitation, and entered Kansas ; 
but without the rifles, and with only a part of his other 
supplies. 

These tedious delays in the armed expedition under 
Brown's direction, from which the Massachusetts Com- 
mittee and the majority of the National Committee hoped 
so much, were very annoying to Brown himself, — more so, 
as it happened, than to those who had placed the arms and 
money in his hands. " God protects us in winter," he had 
told his Massachusetts friends ; and the same protection 
was extended throughout the whole year 1857 to the poor 
farmers of Kansas, who had suffered in 1856 to the verge 
of ruin. The resignation of Governor Geary in j\Iarch and 
the appointment of Governor Walker had not led, as was 
feared, to a repetition of the scenes of Shannon's adminis- 
tration. Peace was preserved, emigrants flocked into Kan- 
sas, and the political campaign which ended in the October 
election had a result unexpectedly favorable to the Free- 
State men. Consequently the rifles and cannon of Brown 
were not needed, and but few of them ever were carried 
into Kansas. Had he gone in Avith them in June, as he ex- 
pected, the result would not have been materially different, 
although his presence would have given more confidence to 
the radical wing in the Free-State party, which ultimately 
triumphed. In truth, Brown had done his w^ork during the 
summer of 1856 — that season of hardship and terror — so 
thoroughly that there was no need to continue it in 1857. 
When resumed in 1858-59, it was chiefly to protect the 
settlers in the border counties, and to aid the escape of 
slaves in Missouri. What Brown thought and felt during 



406 LIEE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

this year of inaction may be inferred from these letters, 
which begin with his final departure from New England in 
April : — 

John Brown to his Familij and Friends. 

New Haven, Conn., April 23, 1857. 

Dear Children, — I received your letter of the 6th and 8th inst. 
Will endeavor to get the article Ruth wrote for. I now expect to 
buy the place of Franklin and Samuel. I would he very glad to 
have some of the fiiends take a horse-team and meet me at West- 
port as soon as this is received. Inquire for me at Mr. Judd's^ 
Elizahethtown. I want to get a passage, and to have some things 
taken out. Have but a moment to M'rite. If I am not found at 
Westport, wait a little for me. 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Vergennes, Vt., May 13, 1857. 

George L. Stearns, Esq., Boston, Mass. 

Mv DEAR Sir, — ... In regard to the security you mention, 
for being responsible for Colonel Carter, I will say, it is most reason- 
able ; but as I deem it most uncertain what will become of things I 
carry into the war, and as I need arms " more than I do bread," I 
propose not to draw on you for the amount named, — thirteen hun- 
dred dollars, — and will not. 

This, I trust, will be entirely satisfactory to you, and a vastly bet- 
tor security. I am exceeding glad of the arrangement with Colonel 
Carter, whom I have M'j-itten. I leave here for the West to-day, 
with health some improved, and shall be much gratified with getting 
a line from you, addressed to Orson M. Oviatt, Esq., Cleveland, 
Ohio. Please remember me to Mrs. S., family, and other friends; 
and believe me 

Your sincere friend, 

John Brown. 

The allusion above is to the generous offer of Mr. Stearns 
to guarantee the payment for two hundred revolvers, made 
by him in these letters of May, 1857 : — 

Maij 4. I have written to Colonel Carter that I will be responsi- 
ble for the payment of thirteen hundred dollars for two hundred 
revolvers, as you propose, and have requested him U^ write to you if 



is:.;.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 407 

he accepts my proposal.^ If he does not, I will write to you again. 
If I pay for these revolvers, I shall expect that all the arms and am- 
munition, rifles as well as revolvers, not used for the defence of 
Kansas, shall be held as pledged to me for the payment of this 
amount. To this our committee have assented by a vote passed on 
Saturday, and I have no doubt you will assent to it. If you do not, 
let me know your reasons. 

Mai/ 6. I thiuk you ought to go to Kansas as soon as possible, 
and give Robinson and the rest some backbone. 

3Ia!/ II. I am glad to know that you are on your way to Kansas : 
the Free-State leaders need somebody to talk to them. I hope you 
will see Conway very soon after your arrival. I did not^expect you 
to return, or hold pledged to me, any aruis you used in Kansas, but 
only such as were not used. 

I'ruly yours, 

George L. Stearns. 

Although Mr. Stearns had given authority to draw on 
him for seven thousand dollars during 1857, what John 
Brown actually did was to abstain from drawing for a dol- 
lar, to take nothing from this abundance either for his 
own comforts or the wants of his family, but to push for- 
ward with the work he had undertaken, burdened in heart, 
but faithful to the trust his friends reposed in him. They, 
alas ! were not always so thoughtful for him as he for them ; 
they did not consider that the promises of rich men to poor 
men should be kept not only sacredly but promptly. Bis 
dat qui clt.o clat would have been Greek to John Brown ; 
but the meaning of that maxim was burned into his soul by 
the delay in that petty subscription which Mr. Lawrence 
had undertaken for the relief of Brown's family. Here are 
some of the letters which Mr. Stearns and I received from 
him in the spring and summer of 1857 : — 

1 Mr. Stearns's letter to Colonel Carter, agent of the Massachusetts 
Arms Coiiipuny, was as follows : — 

Boston, May 4, 1857. 

Drar Sir, — Being desirous of aiding Captain Brown in his Kansas enterprise, I am 
willing to purchase of you the two hundred revolvers, to be delivered to him as pro- 
posed, and to pay you by my note at four months from date of <lelivery. This will give 
me time to get the money, should I wish to raise the amount by subscription. Should 
you accept my proposition, you will please notify Captain Brown that you are ready to 
deliver ; and your draft, accompanied by his receipt for the property, ;vill be accepted. 



408 Lli'E AND LETfEKS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

To Mr. Steams. 

Vekgennes, "Vt., May 13, 1857. 

Some days since, while on my way home [to North Elba, N. Y.], 
sick with fever and ague, I got your favor of the 29th April, saying, 
*' Mr. Lawrence has agreed witli me that the one thousand dollare 
shall be made up, and will write to Gemt Smith to-day or to-mor- 
r<jw, to say that he can depend on the money from hiui." After 
getting home I agreed with two yonng men (by the name of 
Thompson) who had bargained with Mr. Smith for the farm sev- 
eral years ago, and paid him in part for it, and who had made the 
improvements on it, that I would take the farm, pay the balance 
due Mr. Sfiiith (some two hundred dollars), and the remainder, 
about eight hundred dollars, to them; which would enable them 
to pay for another farm which they had before bought of a Mr. 
Lawton, and were unable to pay for. Three days ago one of these 
men set out for Peterboro' (the home of Gerrit Smith) to meet 
me there, on my way West, and have the thing com})leted. I 
will now say (" frankly," as you suggest) that I must ask to have 
the one thousand dollars made up at once and forwarded to Gerrit 
Smith. I did not start the measure of getting up any subscription 
for me (although I was sufficiently needy, as God knows), nor had 
I a thought of further burdening either of my dear friends Stearns or 
Lawrence. 

To F. B. Sanborn. 

Peterboro', N. Y., May 15, 1857. 

Your most kind letter of the 26th of A])ril I did not get till 
within the last two or three days, and then I was on my way 
West, full of cares, and in feeble health. I have just written my 
friend Stearns a letter of ex])lanation, in which I frankly ask that 
the one thousand dollars' donation I was so generously encouraged 
to expect for the permanent assistance of my wife and children be, 
under the circumstances as so explained, promptly raised. This, 
I think, much the cheapest and most proper way to provide for 
them, and far less humiliating to my wife, who, though not above 
getting her bread over the washtub, will never tell her trials or her 
wants to the world. This I know by the experience of the past two 
years, while I was absent ; but I would never utter a syllable in re- 
gard to it, were I not conscious that I am performing that service 
which is equally the- duty of millions, who need not forego a single 
hearty dinner by the efforts they are called on to make. I did not 
mean to burden my friends Stearns and Lawrence further with the 
thing. I do not love to '' ride free horses till they fall down dead." 



1857] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 409 

In reply to Brown's letter of May 13, Mr. Stearns wrote 
on the 19th a letter containing this passage, — the reference 
to Gerrit Smith on my authority being understood by me 
to concern Brown's main work, and not this purchase of 
land : — 

Boston-, May 19, 1857. 

Your favor of the 13th was received yesterday. Mr. Lawrence 
agreed with me that the one thousand dollars should be made up for 
you, and requested me to write you so. The next day he sent me a 
note stating that he had written to Mr. Smith to receive from him six 
hundred dollars, and let you mortgage for four hundred dollars. 1 
learn to-day fnmi Mr. Sauhoru that Gerrit Smith intends to aid you 
in tliis, and also obtain sometliing for your enterprise in his neigh- 
borhood. My agreement with Mr. Lawrence was that he having 
five hundred and fifty dollars towards the one thousand dollars, I 
would be responsible for one-half of the deficiency, if he would 
provide the other half, and when he returns I shall tell him he must 
fuliil the agreement with me. He will be home the 1st of June. 

To this Brown replied at once : — 

Akron, Ohio, May 23, 1857. 
George L. Stearns, Esq., Boston, Mass. 

My dear Sir, — On my arrival at Cleveland yesterday, I famd 
with 0. M. Oviatt, Esq., your favors of the IGth and 19th inst. I 
had made no previous arrangement with Mr. Smith about the laud, 
other than to say that I wanted the contract with the Th(jmpsons 
made over to me t>n payment, or to that eftect. He had given me no 
encouragement of any help about it from him ; and when I met one 
of the Thompsons there, ^ all I could do was to get both parties to 
agree to the arrangement, and to wait until the money could get on 
from Boston. Mr. Smith had before written me that his last year's 
efforts for Kansas had embarrassed him, but that when the struggle 
was renewed he would do all he could. He gave me fifty doUars, 
Mrs. S. ten dollars and some little useful articles ; Peterboro' friends 
gave me thirty-one dollars, and I came on with the understanding 
that probably the thousand dollars would soon be sent on to Mr. 
Smith. I lost about one week on my way to my family with ague 
and fever, and left home feeble, and am still so. I could promise 
Colonel Carter no more than pay for primings, which I had not bar- 
gained for. I shall redeem my promise to you as soon as I am able 

1 At Peterboio'. 



410 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

to do so. Please write me next to Dr. Jesse Bowen, Iowa City, 
Iowa, on envelope. I send my earnest good wishes to Mrs. S. and 
the children. Am disappointed in not having Mr. Foster and child 
for company. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

Upon this statement of the case, Mr. Stearns proposed 
to Mr. Lawrence that the money should be sent on at 
once. To this proposition he finally assented, but in the 
mean time wrote to Mr. Stearns as follows : — 

June 3 [1857]. 
My dear Sir, — I did not intend to do any more than to write a 
"heading" for a subscription for Captain Brown, and subscribe for 
myself. But he was desirous to have me do more, and I have, as 
the paper shows. I wish I could do the whole. But I am behind- 
hand in everything. My business extends through a large part of 
the twenty-four hours, and prevents my devoting as much time as 
would be desirable to push on this and similar good projects for 
individual advantage. If Captain Brown should be killed or dis- 
abled, then I should be held for the one thousand dollars.-' 

Yours truly, 

A. A. Lawrence. 

HrosoN, Ohio, May 27, 1857. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — ... I have got 
Salmon's letter of the 19th instant, and am much obliged for it. 
There is some prospect that Owen will go on with me. If I should 
never return, it is my particular request that no other monument 
be used to keep ine in remembrance than the same plain one that 
records the death of my grandfather and son ; and that a shoi-t story, 
like tliose already on it, be told of John Brown the fifth, under that 
of grandfather. I tliink I have several good reasons for this. I 
would be glad that my posterity should not only remember their 
parentage, but also the cause they labored in. I do not expect to 
leave these jjarts under four or five days, and will try to write again 

1 I take it this last sentence implies that Brown was going to "bear 
arms," that he was on a dangerous errand, and that Mr. Lawrenee approved 
of wliat lie was going to do with tlie arms and money in liis hands. At this 
time tliere was no talk of the Virginia jtlan, nor did any property of tlie 
Kansas Committee go for that plan, — but the property of individual mem- 
bers who gave it freely, knowing what might be done with it. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 411 

before I go off. I am much confused in mind, and cannot remember 
what I wish to write. May God abundantly bless you all ! . . . 
Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

These letters are all brief and to the point. 

Wassonville, Iowa, July 17, 1857. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — Since I last wrote 
I have made but little progress, having teams and wagons to rig up 
and load, and getting a horse hurt pretty badly. Still we shall get on 
just as well and as fast as Providence intends, and I hope we may 
all be satisfied with that. We hear of but little that is interesting 
from Kansas. It will be a great privilege to hear from home again ; 
and I would give anything to know that I should be permitted to 
see you all again in this life. But God's will be done. To his 
infinite grace I coTnmend you all. 

Your afl'ectiouate husband and father, 

John Brov^ji. 

Tabor, Iowa, Aug. 8, 1857^ 
George L. Stearns, Esq., Boston, Mass. 

My dear Sir, — In consequence of ill-health and other hin- 
drances too numerous and unpleasant to write about, the least of 
which has not been the lack of sufficient means for fi-ei^ht bills and 
other expenses, I have never as yet returned to Kansas. Tliis has 
been unavoidable, unless I returned without securing the principal 
object for which I came back from the Territory ; and I am now 
waiting for teams and means to come from there to enable me to go 
on.i I obtained two teams and wagons, as I talked of, at a cost of 
seven hundred and eighty-six dollars, but was obliged to hire a 
teamster and to drive one team myself. This unexpected increase of 
labor, together with being inuch of the time quite unwell and de- 
pressed with disappfiintments and delays, has prevented my writing 
sooner. Indeed, I had pretty much determined not to write till I 
should do it from Kansas. I will tell you some of my disappoint- 
ments. I was flattered with the expectation of getting <me thousand 
dollars from Hartford City and also one thousand dollars from New 
Haven. From Hartford I did get about two hundred and sixty dol- 
lars, and a little over in some repair of arms. From New Haven I 
got twenty- five dollars; at any rate, that is all I can get any advice 
of. Gerrit Smith supplied me with three hundred and fifty dollars, 

1 Have here and at Nebraska City fire full loads. 



412 LIPE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

or I could not have reached this place. He also loaned me one hun- 
dred and ten dollars to pay to the Thompsons who were disappointed 
of getting their money for the farm I had agreed for and got posses- 
sion of for use. I liave been continually hearing from them that I 
have not fnlfilled, and that I told them I should not leave the country 
till the thing was completed. This has exceedingly mortified me. I 
could tell you much more had I room and time. Have not given up. 
Will write more when J get to Kansas. 

Your friend, 

John Brown. 

To F. B. Sanhoni. 

Tabok, Fremont County, Iowa, Aug. 13, 1857. 

Much as I, love to communicate with you, it is still a great burden 
for me to write when I have nothing of interest to say, and when 
there is something to be active about. Since I left New England I 
have had a good deal of ill-health ; and having in good measure ex- 
hausted my available means toward purchasing such supplies as I 
should certainly need if again called into active service, and without 
which I could accomplish next to nothing, I had to begin my jour- 
ney back with not more than half money at any time to bear my 
expenses through and pay my freights. This being the case, I was 
obliged to stop at different points on the way, and to go to others off 
the route to solicit help. At most places I raised a little ; but it 
consumed my time, and my unavoidable expenses so nearly kept 
pace with my incomes that I found it exceedingly discouraging. 
With the help of Gerrit Smitii, who supplied me with sixty dollais 
at Peterboro', and two hundred and fifty dtdlars at Chicago, and 
«)ther smaller amounts from others, I was able to pay freights and 
other expenses to this place; hiring a man to drive one team, and 
driving another myself ; and had about twenty-five dollars on hand, 
with about one hundred dollars' worth of provisions, when I readied 
here. Among all the good friends who had promised to go with me, 
not one could I get to stick by me and assist me on my way through. 
I have picked up, at different times on the way, considerable value 
in articles (indispensable in active service) which were scattered on 
the way, and had been provided either by or for the National Com- 
mittee. On reaching here I found one hundred and ten dollars, sent 
me by Mr. Whitnum, from sale of articles in Kansas, sent there by 
the National Committee. This is all tlie money I have got from 
them on their appro])riation at New York. On the road one of my 
horses hurt himself so badly that T lost about ten days in conse- 
quence, not being in condition to go on without him, or to buy or to 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 413 

hire another. I find the arms and ammunition voted me by the 
Massachusetts State Committee nearly all here, and in middling good 
order, — some a little rusted. Have overhauled and cleaned up the 
worst of them, and am now waiting to know what is best to do 
next, or for a little escort from Kansas, should I and the supplies be 
needed. I am now at last within a kind of hailing distance of our 
Free-State friends in Kansas. 

On the way from Iowa City I and my third son (the hired man I 
mentioned), in order to make the little funds we had reach as far as 
possible, and to avoid notice, lived exclusively on herring, soda 
crackers, and sweetened water for more than three weeks (^^leeping 
every night in our wagons), except that twice we got a little milk, 
and a few times some boiled eggs. Early in the season, in conse- 
quence of the poor encouragement I met with, and of their own 
losses and suft'erings, my sons declined to return ; and my wife wrote 
me as follows : " The boys have all determined both to practise and 
learn war no more." This I said nothing about, lest it should pre- 
vent my getting any fuither supplies. After leaving New England 
I could not get the scratch of a pen to tell whether anything had 
been deposited at Hartford, from New Haven and other places, for 
nie or not; until, since I came here, a line comes from Mr. Callender, 
dated 24th July, saying n(jthing has been deposited, in answer to 
one I had written June 22, in which he further says he has an- 
swered all my letters. The patting with my wife and young uned- 
ucated children, without income, supplies of clothing, provisions, or 
even a comfortable house to live in, or money to provide such things, 
with at least a fair chance that it was to be a last and final separa- 
tion, liad lain heavily on me, and was about as much a matter of self- 
sacrifice and self-devotion on the part of my wife as on my own, and 
about as much her act as my own. When Mr. Lawrence, of his 
own accord, proposed relieving me on that score, it greatly eased a 
burdened spirit ; but I did not rely upon it absolutely, nor make any 
certain bargain on the strength of it, until after being positively as- 
sured by Mr. Stearns, in writing, that it should, and by yourself that 
it would, certainly be done. 

It was the poor condition of my noble-hearted wife and of her 
young children that made me follow up that encouragement with a 
tenacity that disgusted him and completely exhausted his patience. 
But after such repeated assurances from friends I so much respected 
that I could not suspect they would trifle with my feelings, I made 
a positive bargain for the farm ; and when I found notliing for 
me at Peterboro', T borrowed one hundred and ten dollars of Mr. 
Smith for the men who occupied the farm, telling liim it would cer- 
tainly be refunded, and the others that they would get all their 



414 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

money very soon, and even before I left the country. This has 
broiiglit me only extreme mortification and depression of feeling ; 
for all my letters from home, up to the last, say not a dime has 
been paid in to Mr. Smith. Friends who never know the lack of 
a sumptuous dinner little comprehend the value of such trilling 
matters to persons circumstanced as I am. But, my noble-hearted 
friend, I am " though faint, yet pursuing." My health has been 
much better of late. I believe my anxiety and discouragements 
had sometliing to do with repeated returns of fever and ague I have 
had, as it tended to deprive me of sleep and to debilitate me. I 
intend this letter as a kind of report of my progress and success, as 
much for your coumiittee or my friend Stearns as yourself. I have 
been joined by a friend since I got here, and get no discouraging 
news from Kansas. Your friend, 

J. Brown. 

Tabok, Iowa, Aug. 17, 1857. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — I have just received 
the letter of Henry and Kuth, of 2()th and 27tli July, enclosing one 
from Mr. Day. We are very glad to learn that all were well so 
lately ; and I am pleased to discover that Mr. Day is willing I 
should pay Henry, if I have any funds of his in my hands. This I 
shall certainly try to do, should that prove to be the case. I do not 
know how that is, as I have not yet had time to overhaul some 
papers left by me last fall in my old cliest with Owen. Shall try 
to do that soon. I wrote home from here week before last, on Satur-" 
day. Since then we have been waiting either for news or for a small 
escort of men and teams to go witli us. We get no special news 
from the West as yet. We are beginning to take lessons, and have 
(we think) a very capable teacher. Should no disturbance occur, 
we may possibly think best to work back eastward ; ^ camiot deter- 
mine yet. I hope you will continue to write me here till I say to 
you where else; and I want you to give me aU the particulars con- 
cerning your welfare. God bless you all ! 

N. Haavkins. 

Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, Sept. 12, 1857. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — It is now nearly two 
weeks since I have seen anytliing from home, and about as long 
since I wnjte. . . . We get nothing very definite from Kansas yet, 

1 Here is the first intimation in tliese letters of a purpose to use his 
armed force against slavery in the eastern Slates, as lie di<l two years 
after. 



i 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 415 

but think we shall in the course of another week. . . . Got a most 
kind letter from Mr. F. B. Sanborn yesterday; also one from Mr. 
Blair, where Oliver was living. You probably have but little idea 
of my anxiety to get letters from you constantly ; and it would aft'ord 
me great satisfaction to Icaru that you all regularly attend to reading 
your Bibles, and that you are all jmnctual to attend meetings on 
Sabbath days. I do not remember ever to have heard any one com- 
plain of the time he had lost in that way. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Of all the Brown family who had settled in Kansas two 
years before, there now remained only the household of 
the Rev. Mr. Adair, Brown's brother-in-law, who wrote him 
at Tabor thus : — 

OsAWATOMiE, K. T., Oct. 2, 1857. 
Mr. J. B. 

Dear Friend, — Yours of September 5 was received yesterday, 
Iiaving been mailed at Lawrence the day beftu-e. Your whereabouts 
had for some time been to us unknown. The letter you sent to " Mr. 
Addis " was forwarded to me in the latter part of June.^ I secured the 
sum of money requested, but the men failed to go. I was in Law- 
rence about a month since; Mr. Whitman was East. " Mr. Addis" 
said that the last he had heard of you, you had gone to Chicago, 
but expected you would return to Tabor again before long ; thouglit 
some persons would go and meet you, — talked some of going him- 
self. You desire much a pei'sonal interview with me, and also defi- 
nite information about matters as they "really are" now in the 
Territory. As to a personal interview, I should be happy to have 
one ; but the state of my own health and of my family forbids my 
going to Tabor at present. For nearly five weeks past I have spent 
most of my time in taking care of the sick, when able to do anything. 
I had a man hired to work for me, who about the 1st of September 
was taken very sick (fever and internal inflammation); has been 
better, and again worse, and is still dangerous. I Avas absent nearly 
one week at Lecompton, as a witness in the case of the Osawatomie 
town site ; some outsiders having tried to preempt a part of it. 
Had to hire a man during my absence, to take care of the sick man. 
Since my return I have been much troubled with illness, sometimes 
severe when I exercise much. Florella and the babe have very sore 
throats ; the babe is teething, has chills sometimes, and requires 

1 I STippose " Mr. Addis " was W. A. Phillips. 



416 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BlIOWN. [1857. 

much care. Charles and Emnia are well at jireseut. Mrs. Garrison ^ 
and babe have been with us since the first of June until last week. 
She came back, went to Lecomptou to preempt her claim in June, 
just before the land-(jffice closed ; but did not succeed, because 1 
could not swear that she had as a widow built, or caused to be 
built, a house on the claim. The house her husband built they 
would not recognize as being built by her ^^ as a widow." Slie had 
to return and have another built, which has been done. She went 
last week and preempted, and has returned to Ohio. For a number 
of weeks before she left slie and her babe had both been sick. 
Though we have not had nmch sickness among the members of our 
own family proper, yet we are in a measure worn out taking care of 
the sick. We greatly feel the need of rest and quiet- There is a 
good deal of sickness around, — chieily among the more recent 
emigrants. It has been drier here this year than last. My corn and 
potatoes are almost an entire failure. Mine were planted early; 
later crops have done better. 

As to political matters, I have my own views of things. Walker 
has disgraced himself, — has not fulfilled a pledge made in his 
Topeka speech ; indeed, I never had confidence to believe he would. 
But the Free-State men have determined to go into the October 
election, and many are sanguine that they will carry it. I may be 
disappointed, but cannot see tilings in so favorable a light as they do. 
An invasion such as we had in '54 and '55 I do not expect ; but 
doubtless many voters from slave States will be smuggled in, and 
fraudulent returns will be made ; nor do I suppose it will be possible 
for the Free- State men to show up the frauds so as to gain their 
ends. The showing up of frauds does not amount to much where 
those who are to decide upon the frauds are abettors or perpetrators 
of them, and the highest rewards are given from headquarters for 
the most bold and outrageous perpetrators. Hence I rather expect 
that the proslavery men will carry the day Octt)ber 5. If disap- 
ptiinted, I shall rejoice. Wluit course things will take if the Free- 
State men fail, I d(j not know. Some prophesy trouble right along. 
Tills would not surprise me were it to occur. But I would deplore 
a renewal of war. If it is to be commenced again, the boil had 
better be probed in the centre, at Washington, where the corrup- 
tion is the worst. The proslavery men in the Territory are but 
petty tools. 

No recent word from Hudson, Akron, or Grafton. We have now 
a tri-weekly mail to Westport, and also to Lawrence; mails gen- 
erally regular. I know of no means of sending you by private 

1 Widow of a iieighboi killed August 30, 1856. 



1857.] THE KANSAS COMMITTEES. 417 

couveyauce. Send by mail, addressing on the envelope as you 
requested. 

S. L. Adair. 
P. S. A letter from you to me by mail would probably reach me 
without mucli risk. 

Such letters depict the every-day situation of matters in 
Kansas at this time. But Brown was meditating a stroke 
which should accomplish more than the most garrulous 
chronicler could narrate. 

Note. — It will be plain from the letters given in this chapter that 
Brown was regarded in Kaut^as, at the close of 1857, by all the leading 
Free-State men, and by their friends in New England and New York, as 
neither a dangerous nor a deceitlul man. They aetually felt that reliance 
upon him which these letters express ; any subsequent opinion of theirs to 
the contrary was an afterthought. The active hostiUty of llobinson and 
G. W. Ijiown to John Brown began in 1858. 



418 LIFE AND LETTEKS UF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 



CHAPTEK XIL 
THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 

JOHN BROWN'S long-meditated plan of action in Vir- 
ginia was wholly Lis own, as he more than once 
declared ; and it was not until he had long formed and 
matured it that he made it known to the few friends out- 
side of his own household who shared his confidence in 
that matter. I cannot say how numerous these were ; but 
beyond his family and the armed followers who accom- 
panied him, I have never supposed that his Virginia plan 
was known to fifty persons. Even to those few it was not 
fully communicated, though they knew that he meant to 
fortify himself somewhere in the mountains of Virginia or 
Tennessee, and from that fastness, with his band of sol- 
diers, sally out and emancipate slaves, seize hostages and 
levy contributions on the slaveholders. Moreover, from the 
time he first matured it, there were several changes amount- 
ing at last to an entire modification of the scheme. As he 
disclosed it to me in 1858, in the house of Gerrit Smith at 
Peterboro', it was very different from the plan he had un- 
folded to Thomas and to that other Maryland freedmau 
Frederick Douglass, at Brown's own house in Springfield in 
1847.^ I have already quoted Douglass's description of this 
house and its master, whose guest he was. In respect to 
his disclosure of the great plan, Douglass says in his " Life 
and Times " (edition of 1881, pp. 279-282) : — 

" Captain Brown cautiously approached the suhjcct wliich he 
wishoil to bring to iny attention, for he scomod to apprehend oippu- 
sition to Ills views. He dononnced slavery in look and language 

1 This house, on Franldin Street, north of the railroad statioTi, near which 
was Brown's wool-warehouse, is still standing. It was rented by Brown, 
who never owned a house in New England, nor lived so long in any there 
as in that where he was born at Torrington. 



II 



1854.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 419 

fierce and bitter ; thought that slavehohlers had forfeited tlieir riglit 
to live, and that the slaves had the right to gain their liberty in any 
way they could ; did not believe that ' moral suasion ' would ever 
liberate the slave, nor that political action would abolish the system. 
He had long had a plan wliich could accomplish this end, and had 
invited me to his house to lay that plan before me ; he liad been 
some time looking for colored men to wliom he could safely reveal 
his secret, and at times he had almost despaired of finding such men ; 
lint now he was encouraged, for he saw heads of such rising up in all 
directions. He had observed my course, at home and abroad, and he 
wanted my co-operation. His plan, as it then lay in his mind, had 
much to commend it. It did not, as some suppose, contemplate a 
general rising ambng the slaves, and a general slaughter of the 
slavemasters : an insurrection, he thought, would only defeat the 
object ; but his plan did contemplate tlie creating of an armed f irce 
which shouLl act in the very heart of the South. He was not averse 
to the shedding of blot)d, and thought the practice of carrying arms 
would be a good one for the colored people to ailopt, as it would give 
them a sense of their manliood. No people, he said, could have self- 
respect, or be respected, wlio would not fight for their freedom. He 
called my attention to a map of the United States, and pointed out 
to me the ranges which stretch away from the borders of New York 
into the Southern States. ' These mountains,' he said, ' are the ba.sis 
of my plan. God has given the strength of the hills to freedom ; they 
were placed here for the emancipation of the negro race ; they are 
full of natural forts, where one man for defence will be equal to a 
hundred for attack ; they are full also of good hiding-places, where 
large numbers of brave men could be ccnicealed, and baffle and elude 
pursuit for a long time. I know these mountains well, and could 
take a body of men into them and keep them there, despite of all the 
efforts of Virginia to dislodge them. The true object to be sought is, 
first of all, to destroy the money-value of slave property ; and that 
can only be done by rendering such property insecure. My plan, 
then, is to take at first about twenty-five picked men, and begin on 
a small scale ; supply them arms and ammunition, and post them in 
squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles. The most persuasive 
and judicious of them shall then go down to the fields from time to 
time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to join thein, seek- 
ing and selecting the most restless and daring.' He saw that in this 
part of tlio work the utmost care must be used to avoid treachery and 
disclosure. Only the most conscientious and skilled should be sent 
on this perilous duty ; with care and enterprise he thought he could 
soon gather a force of a hundred hardy men, who would be content 
to lead the free and adventurous life to which he proposed to train 



420 LIFE AND LETTERS f)F JOHN BKOWX. [1854. 

thein. When tliese were properly drilled, and each man had found 
the place for which he was best suited, they would begin work in 
earnest; they would run off the slaves in large numbers, retain the 
brave and strong ones in the mountains, and send the weak and 
timid to the North by tlie ' underground railroad ; ' liis operations 
Would be enlarged with increasing numbers, and would not be ci)n- 
fined to one locality. 

*' When I asked him how he would support these men, he said 
emphatically he would subsist them upon the enemy. Slavery was 
a state of war, and the slave had a right to anything necessary to his 
freedom. ' But,' said I, * suppose you succeed in running oti' a few 
slaves, and thus impress the Virginia slaveholders with a sense of in- 
security in their slaves, — the effe<-t will only be to make them sell their 
slaves farther South.' 'That,' said he, ' will be first what I want to 
do ; then I would follow them up. If we could drive slavery out of 
one county, it would be a great gain ; it would weaken the system 
throughout the State.' ' But they would employ bloodhounds to 
hunt you out of the mountains.' ' That they might attempt,' said 
he, ' but the chances are we should whip them ; and whe,u we should 
have whipped one squad, they would be careful how they pui'sued.' 
' But you might be surrounded and cut off from your means of sub- 
sistence.' He thought tliat could not be done so they could not cut 
their way out ; but even if the worst came, he could but be killed, 
and he liad no better use for his life than to lay it down in the cause 
of the slave. When I suggested that we might convert the slave- 
holders, he became much excited, and said that could never be; 'he 
knew their proud hearts, and that they would never be induced to 
give up their slaves until they felt a big stick about their heads.' He 
thought I might have noticed the simple manner in which he lived, 
adding that he had adopted this in order to save money to carry out 
his purposes. This was said in no boastful tone, for he felt that he 
had delayed already too long, and liad no room to boast either his 
zeal or his self-denial. Had some men made such display of rigid 
virtue, I should have rejected it as affected, false, or hypocriti(ral, but 
in John Brown I felt it to be as real as iron or granite. From this 
night spent with John Brown in 1847, while I continued to write 
and speak against slavery, I became all the less hopeful nf its peace- 
ful abolition. ]\Iy utterances became more and more tinged by the 



1 Mr. Douglass adds the true version of a famous anecdote : "Speaking 
at an autislavery convention in Ohio, I expressed my apprehension tiiat 
slavery could only be destroyed by bloodshed, when I was suddenly and 
sharply interrupted by my good old friend Sojourner Truth, with the ques- 



I 



1858] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 421 

There can be no question that what Brown saw and did 
in Kansas gave a new tone to his scheme. I do not much 
rely upon the memory of Mr. Amy, who as a witness before 
Senator Mason's committee showed himself apt at forget- 
ting and misplacing events ; but a part of his testimony 
bearing upon this matter must have some foundation in fact. 
He mentions a conversation held with Brown in Kansas 
late in 1858, in which Brown said the only way to abolish 
slavery was to post a company of men somewhere in the 
mountains of the slave States to assist slaves in escaping, 
and thus make the system of slavery insecure. " I told 
him that I thought he was doing an injury to the whole 
country in pursuing that course ; that it was contrary to his 
former views on the subject ; that I did not suppose he 
could get any person to assist him in it ; that I felt satisfied 
his good friend Gerrit Smith would not assist him, because 
Mr. Smith had placed in our hands ten thousand dollars, 
and made it an especial condition that every dollar of it 
should go for food or medicine, and not for matters of war ; 
he professed to be a peace man. I told him I knew he was 
acquainted with Dr. Howe, and I did not suppose Dr. Howe 
would do anything of that sort : no Republican would. His 
answer was, that he disliked the do-nothing policy of the 
Abolitionists ; they would never effect anything by their 
milk-and-water principles. As to the Republicans, they were 
of no account, for they were opposed to carrying the war 
into Africa; they were opposed to meddling with slavery in 
the States where it existed. He said his doctrine was to 
free the slaves by the sword. I then again asked him how 

tion, 'Frederick, is God dead?' 'No,' I answered, 'and because God 
is not dead, slavery can only end in blood.' My quaint old sister was of 
the Garrison school of non-resistants, and was shocked at my sanguinary 
doctrine ; but she, too, became an advocate of the sword when the war for 
the maintenance of the Union was declared." I have slightly abbreviated 
Douglass's statement here and there. Possibly in writing from meinor}^ 
after Biown's death, he may have unconsciously mingled with the scheme 
of 1847 features that did not take shape in Brown's mind until after his 
Kansas experiences. Thomas Thomas assures me tliat Biown's plan before 
1851 was to occupy land at the South as a slaveholdei', using trusty colored 
men as his nominal slaves, and through them indoctrinating the real slaves 
with the hopes of freedom. 



422 LIFE AND LETTERS 0¥ JUllN BKOWX. [1857. 

he reconciled such opinions witli Lis peace principles that 
he held when I iirst knew him in Virginia, more than twenty 
years ago. He said that the aggressions of slavery, the 
murders and robberies perpetrated upon himself and mem- 
bers of his family, the violation of the laws by Atchison and 
others in Kansas in 1855, and from that time down to the 
murders on the Marais des Cygnes, convinced him that peace 
was but an empty word." 

It was a year before this that Brown, in September, 1857, 
began to prepare the minds of his Eastern friends for the 
full scope of his purposes. He was then at Tabor, in West- 
ern Iowa, where he had opened a small school for military 
drill, at the head of which was the Garibaldian Briton, Hugh 
Forbes, the adventurer already described. Brown wrote to 
Theodore Parker, September 11, — 

My dear Sir, — Please find on other side first number of a series 
of tracts lately gotten up here. I need not say I did not prepare it; 
but I would be glad to know wliat you think of it, and much obliged 
for any suggestions you see proper to make. My particular object in 
writing is to say that I am in immediate want of some five hundred 
or one thousand dollars for secret service, and no questions asked. I 
want the friends of freedom to "prove me now herewith." Will you 
bring this matter before your congregation, or exert your influence in 
some way to have it, or some part of it, raised and placed in the hands 
of George L. Stearns, Esq., of Boston, subject to my order? I should 
highly prize a letter h\)m you, directed on the envelope to Jonas 
Jones, Esq., Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa. Have no news to send 
by letter. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

The tract enclosed was a dull and heavy paper entitled 
" The Duty of the Soldier," and bearing on its face the in- 
scription, " Presented with respectful and kind feelings to 
the officers and soldiers of the United States army in Kan- 
sas." Parker probably caused Brown to know what was his 
opinion of this tract, as I did when I received a similar letter. 
It was not easy for any of us in that autumn, when business 
was greatly depressed, to raise money for an object so indefi- 
nite. I sent him some money (seventy-two dollars), whieli 



1857.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 423 

he received Oct. 3, 1857, and others no doubt contributed 
something ; but no mov^ement was made before winter, nor 
did he further disclose his purposes to us at tliat time. But 
wlien he readied Kansas at last, in November, he hastened 
to communicate them iu general terms to Kagi, Cook, iSte- 
phens, and others who afterward joined him in his Virginia 
campaign. Cook's confession, while in prison, is explicit on 
this jjoint, and is confirmed by Parsons, Moffat, and others, 
who received some part of the plan from Brown in Kansas. 
Cook said : — 

" I became acquaiuted with Captain Brown in his camp on Middle 
Creek, K. T., just after the battle of Black Jack, and was with him 
iu camp until it was broken up and his company disbanded by Colonel 
Sumner, of tlie First Cavalry. I next saw him at the convention at 
Topeka, July 4, and some days afterward in Lawrence. I did not 
see him again untU the fall of 1857, when I met him at the house of 
E. B. Whitman, four miles from Lawrence, about the first of Novem- 
ber. I was then told that he intended to organize a company for the 
purpose of putting a stop to the aggressions of the proslavery men. I 
agreed to join him, and was asked if I knew of any other young men, 
who were perfectly reliable, who I thought would join. I recom- 
mended Richard Realf, Luke F. Pai-sous, and R. J. Hinton. I 
received a note from Brown the next Sunday morning while at 
breakfast, in Lawrence, requesting me to come up that day, and 
to bring Realf, Parsons, and Hinton with me. Realf and Hinton 
were not in town. Parsons and myself went, and had a long talk 
with Captain Brown. A few days afterward I received another 
note which read as follows : — 

Captain Cook. 

Drak Sir, — Yon will please get everji:hing ready to join me at To- 
peka by Monday night next. Come to Mrs. Sheridan's, two miles south of 
To})eka, and bring your arms, ammunition, clothing, and other articles you 
may require. Bring Parsons with you if he can get ready in time. Please 
keep very quiet about the matter. 

Yours, etc., 

John Brown. 

" I made all my arrangements for starting at the time appointed. 
Parsons, Realf. and Hinton could not be ready. I left them at Law- 
rence and started for Topeka; stopped at the hotel overnight, and 
left early the next mornins; for ^Irs. Slieridan's to meet Captain 
Brown. At Topeka we were joined by Stephens, Moffat, and Kagi. 
Left Topeka for Nebraska City, and camped at night on the prairie 



424 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

northeast of Topeka. Here for the first time I learned that we were 
to leave Kansas to attend a rnilitary school dining the winter in Ash- 
tabula Comity, Ohio. Next morning I was sent back to Lawrence 
to get a draft of eighty dollars cashed, and get Parsons, llealf, and 
Hinton to come back with me. Captain Brown had given me orders 
to take boat to St. Joseph, Mo., and stage from tliere to Tabor, Iowa. 
Hinton could not leave at that time. I started witli Realf and Par- 
sons on a stage for Leavenworth, and then left for Weston, where 
we took stage for St. Joseph, and thence to Tabor. I found C. P. 
Tidd and Leenian at Tabor, where we stayed some days, making 
preparations to start. Here we found that Captain Brown's ultimate 
destination was the State of Virginia. Some warm words passed 
between hiui and myself in regard to the plan, which I had supposed 
was to be confined entirely to Kansas and Missouri. Realf and Par- 
sons were of the same opinion with me. After a good deal of wrang- 
ling we consented to go on, as the rest of the party were so anxious 
that we should go with them. At Tabor we procured teams for the 
transportation of about two hundred Sharpe's ritles, which had been 
brought on as far as Tabor a year before, awaiting the c>rder of Cap- 
tain Brown. Tliere were also other stores, consisting of blankets, 
clothing, boots, ammuuition, and about two hundred revolvers of the 
Massachusetts Arms patent, all of which we transported across Iowa 
to Spriugdale, and from there to Liberty, at whicli place they were 
shipped for Ashtabula County, Ohio, where they remained till brought 
to Chambei'sburg, Pa., and from there transported to the Kennedy 
Farm, which Brown had rented for six months, and which was about 
five miles from Harper's Ferry. It was the iutenticm of Captain 
Brown to sell his teams in Spriugdale, and with the proceeds to go 
on with the rest of the company to some place in Ashtabula County, 
Ohio, where we were to have a good military instructor during the 
winter; but he was disappoiuted in the sale, and it was decided we 
should remain in the neighborhood of Spriugdale, and that our in- 
structor. Colonel Forbes, should be sent to us from the East. We 
stopjted over winter at Mr. Maxou's, where we pursued a course of 
military studies." 

It thus appears that Brown had started for Virginia with 
a few men, and with the Kansas rifles and revolvers, at least 
three months before he communicated to Mr. Stearns, the 
owner of the arms, that he had any purpose of using them 
outside of Kansas and Missouri. It is also plain that he 
imi)arted his purposes little by little to his armed followers. 
Edwin Coppoc, an Iowa youth, who joined Brown at Spring- 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 425 

dale,, said to the Virginians who captured and hung him : 
" I am a Republican philanthropist, and came here to aid in 
liberating negroes. I made the acquaintance of Captain 
Brown in Iowa as he returned from Kansas, and agreed to 
join his company. Brown wrote to me in July to come on 
to Chambersburg, where he first revealed the whole plot. 
The whole company was opposed to making the first demon- 
stration at Harper's Ferry, but Captain Brown would have 
it his own way, and we had to obey orders." ^ 

C. W. INIoffat, of Montour, Iowa, who was one of Brown's 
company in the winter of 1857-58, says : — 

" We spent the winter in the vicinity of Iowa City. Our efforts 
there were directed towards starting a Sharpe's rifle military school, 
of which a man named Stephens, — known better in Kansas as 
Whipple, — was to be the instructor ; but our plans were interfered 
with by pecuniary embarrassments. Then Bnnvn went to Ohio (fur 
which we had started in the first place) to form another school. 
Tiiere was also to be one in Canada, — three in all. When Brown 
left he gave Whipple charge of the school, and I had sent Forbes 
round by water to Ohio. Forbes had been engaged as drill-master 
at a hundred dollars a month, and when we stopped in Iowa Brown 
said he would have to give Forbes the choice of the schools : if Forbes 
would come back to Iowa, Whipple would take the school in Ohio 
or in Canada. But when he got to Ohio, Brown found that Forbes 
had gone away, and so gave up the Ohio school." 

This is as good a place as any to speak once for all of 
this Hugh Forbes, Avho proved to be the false member of 
the little band, and betrayed the confidence of his employer 
through vanity and emptiness of head, rather than through 
malice of heart. I have already spoken of his employment 
by Brown eight months before ; but his earlier history and 
his general character were thus portrayed by Horace Greeley, 
in his usual lively manner, in October, 1859, after Forbes 
had promulgated some futile disclosures of Brown's plans : 

"This Forbes appeared in New York sometime after the explosion 
of the European revolution of 1848, and claimed to have borne an 
important part in that movement. Of course he was needy, and the 

' See Owen Brown's statement in chap. xv. 



426 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

Herald says he was ' at one time a reporter or translator on tlie 
Tribune.' This is quite probable, though I do not recollect it. 
Some time late in 185(3 (I tliink it was) ^ I was aj»prised that he was 
going out to Kansas to help the Free-State men, then threatened 
with anniliilation by the Border Ruffians of Missouri, backed by 
Federal functionaries and troops. Lawrence had tlien been twice 
beleaguered and once sacked ; Osawatomie had been twice ravaged 
and burned ; Leavenworth had been swept clean of Free-State men 
by a Missouri raid, — William Phillips being butchered while de- 
fending his own house, his brother badly wounded and captured, 
while those who made no resistance were sent down the river at an 
hour's notice. As Forbes professed to be a capable and experienced 
military officer, especially qualified for guerilla or border warfare, and 
as he had always claimed to be an earnest Red Republican and foe of 
every form of human slavery, I thought his rest)lution natui'al and 
commendable. Knowing him to be poor, I gave him twenty dollars 
as he was starting; others gave him larger sums, — how much in all 
I do not know ; but I think his total receipts from friends t)f Free 
Kansas cannot have fallen below seven hundred dollars. He went 
— was absent some months — came back : that is all / know of his 
services to the Free-State cause in any shajw. Whether he was not 
needed, or was not trusted, or was found incompetent, I do not 
know ; I only know tliat lie did nothing, and was practically worth 
nothing.^ I believe he spent part of the money given him in print- 
ing a pamphlet embodying liis notions of guerilla or partisan war- 
fare : of course, no dollar ever came back. I think I heard of him 
before his return, clamoring for more money. In due time, he reap- 
peared in New York, and came to me (as to others) with complaints 
that he had been deceived, misled, swindled, beggared, his family (iu 

1 Renlly in April, 1857. 

2 Forbes could not rest quiet under Greeley's censure, and published in 
the " Herald " this card : — 

New York, Oct. 25, 1859. 
Tliero having appeared in yesterday's "Tritiune " a false and malicious attack upon 
me, I shall, after the trial of John Brown, publish the correspondence between himself, 
liis friends, and myself, which correspondence conunence<l about two years ago, and was 
continued during tlie spring of 1S59. Some Abolitionists of good .judgment Insisted 
strongly that I sliould ni.ake Brown desist from his projects, which they considered 
woultl prove fatal to the antislavery I'ause ; and as there were sundry jiersons in the 
free States interested, copies of most of the letters were furnished to each of them and 
to Brown. I could not myself take all the coiiies, therefore some friends occasionally 
cojiied for me. I feel stire that none of these letters were suffered to be seen by the 
Secretary of War : first, because I have faith in the reliability of those who had them in 
their hands ; and, secondly, because it is alisolutely impossible that, had such authen- 
tic evidence been placed before him, he could have been taken so by survrisc as he was 
at Harper's Ferry. 



1 857. J THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 427 

Paris) turned into the streets to starve, etc. I tried to ascertain tcho 
had deceived him, what promises made to him had been broken, etc., 
but with little success. All I could make out was that some one — 
he now say.s it was Brown — had promised him something in the 
way <jf pecuniary recompense for his services, which had not been 
made good, and that his family were consequently reduced to the 
brink of starvation. I do not believe that Johti Broivn ever ivilfully 
deceived him or any one else. I am very sure that no one was ever 
authorized to engage the services of ' Colonel Forbes' in behalf of 
the Free- State men of Kansas on condition that said Forbes should 
be authorized to charge his own price for those services and draw at 
pleasure on some responsible party for payment. I have never heard 
of any one's version of the matter but Forbes's ; and I confidently 
infer from this, that, if there was mutual misunderstanding and disap- 
pointment in the premises, the employing party had decidedly the 
worst of it." 

In December, 1857, there began to arrive a series of let- 
ters written by this Forbes to Dr. Howe, Charles Sumner, 
and myself, which greatly puzzled us all. Brown's Massa- 
chusetts friends, either from his inadvertence, or because he 
was not yet ready to disclose his ultimate purpose, had not 
been informed by him who F(n-bes was ; they had never 
seen him, and only heard of him casually and incidentally. 
They had never been consulted by Brown in regard to pay- 
ing Forbes, nor of course had Brown given Forbes any 
assurances that they would pay him the salary stipulated 
for his services ; of Avhich, in fact, they knew nothing what- 
ever. It was therefore with much surprise and mystihca- 
tion that about Christmas-time, 1857, we received passionate 
and denunciatory letters, written by Forbes, complaining of 
ill-treatment at our hands, and assuming to hold us respon- 
sible for the termination of his engagement with Brown; 
by which, he said, he had been reduced to poverty, and his 
family in Paris, deprived of pecuniary aid from him, had 
suffered great hardship. Two of these letters were ad- 
dressed to Senator Sumner, and were forwarded by him to 
Dr. Howe and to me, who, in great ignorance as to what 
such abusive epistles meant, answered them with curtness 
and severity. This correspondence temporarily closed in 
January, 1858, and the substance of it was communicated 



428 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

to Brown, then in Iowa, with the request that he would ex- 
plain the meaning of Forbes's course, and state what their 
relations with each other were. I also communicated the 
matter to Theodore Parker, with whom I was then in fre- 
quent correspondence ; and, as it happens, niy letter of 
January, 1858, to Parker has been preserved. I wrote : — 

F. B. Sanborn to T. Parker. 

CoNCOKD, Jan. 15, 1858. 

Dear Friend, — I send you a letter this day received from 
Forbes. During the week I have received a note from Mr. Sum- 
ner, who sent me two letters of Foibes to him, in which he says 
these same tilings. Now, if it were not for the wife and children, 
who are undoubtedly in suffering, the man might be hanged for all 
me, — for his wlndo style towards me is a combination of insult and 
lunacy. But I fear there was such an agreement between him and 
Brown, though Brown has told me nothing of it ; and if so, he has a 
claim upon somebody, though not particularly upon us. Is there 
anytliing that can be done for him ? I have written to Brown in- 
quiring about the matter, but cannot get an answer before the Tniddle 
of February. Have you heard anything from Brown or Whitman ? 
When you do, please let me hear of it. Forbes's threats are of no 
account, and they, with the vulgar abuse which he uses, show 
what sort of man lie is. I shall answer his letter, and send him 
ten dollars. 

January 17. 

Mr. Sumner suggests that in my note to Forbes I might have 
been " less sharp; " but the character of F.'s epistles convinces me 
that, if I erred at all, it was on the side of gentleness. I have since 
received a letter from Forbes himself, in which he goes over the 
same charges and insinuations with " damnable iteration." Thfs 
I have also answered, e.\])laining more fully my position in the mat- 
ter. Forbes threatens terrible things. — meaning, as I conjecture, to 
give notice at the South of Brown's positioti and designs. Sli(»uld he 
do this, he would deserve all the siitroring which his own carelessness 
has brought on his family ; but their suffering troubles me, and I am 
trying to do something to relieve it, and also to lind out from Brown 
the true condition of affairs. 

Yours affectionately, 

F. B. Sanborn. 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 429 

I wrote thus to Forbes himself, and cite the letter here 
only because it preserves some facts and dates which might 
otherwise be lost : — 

F. B. Sanborn to Hugh Forbes. 

Concord, Jan. 15, 1858. 

Sir, — Yours of the 9th and 14th is received. I regret that you 
should have continued the abusive strain of your letter to Mr. Sum- 
ner, towards a person <.if whom you are wholly ignorant, and whose 
character you so greatly mistake. Let me give you some facts, 
which you may believe or not, as you choose. I became acquainted 
with Captain Brown a little more than a year ago, and have since 
been his warm friend and admirer. Being a member of the Mas- 
sachusetts Kansas Committee, I interested myself with my col- 
leagues in his behalf, and we furnished him with some live thousand 
dollars in arms and money. As a temporary member of the National 
Committee, I procured the passage of a resolution appropriating five 
thousand dollars from that conunittee also, of which, however, only 
five hundred dollars has been jiaid. I also introduced him to a pub- 
lic meeting of my townsmen, who raised something for him. In the 
summer I visited Mr. Gerrit Smith, and made arrangements with 
him for the settlement of property worth one thousand dollars on the 
wife and daughter of Captain Brown. The money was raised in 
Boston by the men whom you calumniate. I visited the families in 
the wilderness where they live, and arranged the transfer of property. 
Mr. Smith first mentioned your name to me, — unless it were a 
member of his family, Mr. Morton. Captain Brown had. never 
dcme so, nor did any one hint to me that there was any agreement 
between you and him of the kind you mention. I think I wrote to 
Brown from Peterboro', informing him tliat you were at Davenport, 
having seen your letter to Mr. Smith announcing that fact. On 
September 14 I received Mr. Smith's letter, asking that some money 
be raised for your family, but merely on general grounds. I was 
pledged to aid and support Brown, and could not give money to 
persons of whom I knew little or nothing. Had Brown or yourself 
inft)rmed me of your agreement, the case would have been difi'erent. 
I kept Mr. Smith's draft just a week, returning it to him September 
21 ; it was out of his hands just eleven days. Since then, I have 
had a few letters from Brown, and have seen some from you, but 
have heard nothing of any compact. To answer Brown's call for 
" secret service" money, I procured about six hundred dollars to be 
sent him, which, as he has not yet come into active operations, has 



430 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

probably been sufficient. My property is small, — my income this 
year hardly up to my expenses ; but to carry out the plan which Cap- 
tain Brown has matured, if the time seemed favorable, I would sacri- 
fice both income and property, as he very well knows. But it is 
probable that Captain Brown placed too much confidence in the 
expectations of others, and that he may have mistaken ho2}es for 
promises. Does he join in your vituperation of his Boston friends ? 
I know he does not. 

I can excuse much to one who has so much reason for anxiety as 
you have in the distress of your family. Yet be assured that if you 
had written to me (or if Captain Brown had done so) the true nature 
of your ct)mpact with him, I would have supported your wife and 
children rather than have allowed what has happened to take place. 
You knew my address, — vvhy, then, did you not write to me rather 
than send a slanderous letter to Mr. Sumner I 

As for your threats, you are at liberty to speak, write, and publish 
what you please about me, — only be careful to keep within the 
limits of your knowledge ; do not tax your imagination for facts. I 
have written to Captain Brown for his statement of the relation be- 
tween you, and have also sent to Mr. Gerrit Smith for any information 
in liis possession. In the mean time I send you ten dollars, promising 
that if I find you have any further claim on me, either in law, jus- 
tice, or humanity, I will discharge it to the uttermost. 

The gentlemen with whom I am associated, and for whose action 
I am in any way responsible, are honorable men, and as far from 
deserving the vulgar slanders you heap upon them as your language 
is lacking in common courtesy and justice. Tiiey always keep and 
always will keep their engagements ; but they liave made none with 
you. You cite the people of New Haven. I have nothing to d(t 
with them, nor with the other towns which have failed in their 
promises. 

I never saw Hugh Forbes, and have no personal reason to 
esteem him, since his entire correspondence with me and 
with my Boston friends was absurdly violent and unreason- 
able. Horace Greeley, and those who were bored by him 
in person, at New York and Washington, have spoken of 
him with much impatience, declaring that he was at once 
fanatical and mercenary, and wholly wanting in common- 
sense. In New Y^'ork he was a fencing-master and a hang- 
er-on at the " Tribune " office, while his wife and daughter 
lived in Paris upon remittances sent by him from New 
York. Gerrit Smith, at whose house he once spent a day 



1857.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 431 

or two, spoke of him to me as a handsome, soldierly-looking 
man, skilful in the sword-exercise, and with some military 
experience, picked up under Garibaldi in 1848-49. He had 
been a silk-merchant of some sort at 8ienna, it was said, 
before he joined Garibaldi. Judged by his letters, his lit- 
tle book ("Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer"), and the 
various accounts given by persons who knew him, he was 
a brave, vainglorious, undisciplined person, with little dis- 
cretion, and quite wanting in the qualities which would 
fit him to be a leader of American soldiers. Yet he was 
ambitious, eager to head a crusade against slavery, and 
apparently desirous of taking Brown's place as commander 
of what he regarded as a great antislav^ery movement, sup- 
ported by thousands in the Northern States. Accustomed 
to see European insurrections managed by committees out- 
wardly similar to tlie various antislavery committees which 
he found or heard of in America, he hastily inferred that 
these American committees were all working for the same 
revolutionary end, and were ready to promote a design 
which Brown had as yet communicated to none of them, 
and which none of them would have aided, had they known 
it. He was really connected with Brown's enterprise but a 
few months ; having joined his rendezvous at Tabor, in 
Iowa, on the 9th of August, 1857, and parted from him in 
early November of the same year. His complaining letters 
were the first intimation received by the Boston friends of 
Brown that there was any peculiar relation between him 
and the Kansas hero ; and these letters, by a singular chance, 
occasioned the first disclosure of Brown's plans to his Bos- 
ton friends. 

Frederick Douglass says of Forbes, whom he saw in 
November, 1857, and afterwards kept track of for a 
while : — 

" After remaining with Brown a short time, he came to me in Ro- 
chester with a letter from him, asking me to receive and assist him. 
I was not favorably impressed with Forbes at first ; but I ' conquered 
my prejudices,' took him to a hotel, and paid his ])oard while he 
remained. Just before leaving, he spoke of his family in Europe 
as in destitute circumstances, and of his desire to send them some 
money. I gave him a little, — I forget how much, —and through 



432 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHX BROWN. [1858. 

Miss Ottilia Assing, a Gennan lady drcply intcrcstod in tlie John 
Hrovvn scheme, he was introduced to several of my German friends 
in New York. lint he soon wore iheni out hy his endh-ss be^^ging; 
and wlien lie could make no move money by professing to advance 
th(! John Brown project, ho threatened to expose it and all connected 
witli it. I think I was the first to be informed of his tactics, and I 
[)romptly communicated thein to Cai)tain lirown. Thri>ugh my 
friend Miss Assing I found that Forbes had told Brown's designs to 
Horace Greeley, and to the government officials at Washington, of 
whicli 1 informed Captain Brown ; and this led to the postponement 
of the enlerpi-ise anotlnn- year. It was hoi)ed that by this delay the 
story of Forbes would bo discredited; and this calculation was 
correct, — f()r nobody believed the scoundrel, though he told the 
truth." 

Brown's own method of dealing with the loquacious 
betrayer of his counsels (with which so slight a person 
should never have been intrusted) was peculiar. AVhile at 
the house of Douglass, in Rochester, he received, early in 
February, a letter from Forbes, forwarded by John Brown, 
Jr., frou) West Andover, Ohio, where the latter was then 
living. Upon this he wrote to his son as follows : — 

To John Broxcn, Jr. 

Dear son John, — Forl)es's letter to me of the 27th of January I 
enclose back to you, and will be glad to have you return it to him with 
sometliing like the following (unless you can think of some serious 
objection), as I am anxious to draw him out more fully, and would 
also like t<i keep him a little encouraged and avoid an open rupture 
for a few weeks, at any rate. Suppose you write Forbes thus : — 

" Your letter to my father, of 27t]i January, after mature reflec- 
ti(ni, I have decided to return toyoiij as I atn unwilling he should, 
with all his other cares, difficulties, and trials, be vexed with what I 
am ajipreliensive he will accept as hif/lih/ offenMve and insulting, 
M'hile I know that ho is disposed to do all he consistently can for 
you, and will do so, unless you are yourself the cause of his disgust. 
I was trying to send you a little assistance myself, — say about forty 
dollars; but I must h(dd up till I feel difl'erent from what I now do. 
I understood from my father that he had advanced you already six 
hundred dollars, or six months' pay (disajipointed as he has been), 
to enable you to provide for your family ; and that he was to give 
you one hundred dollars ])er month for just so much time as you con- 
tinued in Ids service. Now, you in your h'tter undertake U^JnMnict 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 433 

hiin to say that he had positively engaged you for one year. I fear he 
will not accept it well to be asked or told to state what he considers 
an untruth. Again, I suspect you have greatly mistaken the man, 
if you suppose he will take it kindly in you, or any living man, to 
assume to instruct him how he should conduct his own business and 
correspondence. And I suspect that the seemingly spiteful letters 
you say you have written to some of his particular friends have not 
only done you great injury, but also weakened his hands with them. 
While I have, in my poverty, deeply sympathized with you and 
your family, icho, I ask, is likely to be moved by any exhibition of 
a wicked and spiteful temper on your part, or is likely to be dictated 
to by you as to their duties ? 

" I ask you to look over your letter again. You begin with say- 
ing, ' With a little energy, all will yet be right.' Is that respectful ? 
and does it come with a good grace from you to the man you thus 
address ? Look it all over ; and if, after having done so, you wish 
him to have it, — go on ! you can do so. But as a friend I would 
advise a very different course." 

As I concdude Forbes does not hold you as deeply committed to 
him, he may listen to you; and I hope lie will. I want to see how 
a sharp but well-merited rebuke will aflfect him ; and should it have 
the desired effect, I would like to get a draft for forty dollars, pay- 
able to his order, and remit him at once. I do not mean to dic- 
tate to you, as he does to me ; but I am anxious to understand him 
fully before we go any further, and shall be glad of the earliest 
information of the result. . . . 

Your afiectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Having established his littl'e company at Springdale, in 
Iowa, under the military instruction of Stephens, who had 
served in the United States Army, Bi'own came eastward 
in January, 1858, — first to West Andover, in Ohio, where 
his son John was then living, and soon after to Rochester, 
N. Y., where he showed himself, early in February, to his 
good friend Frederick Douglass, and took shelter from ob- 
servation in his house. Douglass says : " Brown desired to 
stop with me several weeks, but added, ' I will not stay un- 
less you will allow me to pay board.' Knowing that he was 
no trifier, but meant all he said, and desirous of retaining 
him under my roof, I charged three dollars a week. Wliile 
here he spent most of his time in correspondence. He 

28 



434 LLFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

wrote often to George L. Stearns, of Boston, Gerrit Smith, 
of Peterboro', and many others, and received many let- 
ters in return. When he was not writing letters, he was 
writing and revising a constitution, which he meant to put 
in operation by the men who should go with him in the 
Virginia mountains. He said that to avoid anarchy and 
confusion, there should be a regularly constituted govern- 
ment, which each man who came with him should be sworn 
to honor and support. I have a copy of this constitution, 
in Captain Brown's own handwriting, as prepared by him- 
self at my house." Douglass adds : — 

" His whole time ami tlionght were given to this subject. It was 
the first thing in the morning, and the last thing at uiglit ; till, I 
confess, it began to be something of a bore to me. Once in a wliile 
he would say he could, witli a few resolute men, capture Harper's 
Ferry and supply himself with arms belonging to the Government at 
that place ; but he never announced his intention to do so. It was, 
however, very evidently passing in his mind as a thing that he might 
do. I paid but. little attention to such remarks, altliough I never 
doubted that he thought just what he said. Soon after his coming to 
me he asked me to get for him two smoothly planed boards, upini which 
he could illustrate, with a pair ot dividers, by a drawing, the plan of 
fortification which he meant to adopt in the mountains. These forts 
were to be so arranged as to connect one with the other by secret 
passages, so that if one was cari-ied another could be easily fallen 
back upon, and be the means of dealing death to the eneiny at the 
very moment when he might think himself victorious. I was less 
interested in these drawings than my children were ; but they 
sliowed that the old man had an eye to the means as well as to 
the end, and was giving his best thought to the work he was about 
to take in hand." 

From Douglass's house Brown wrote again to Theodore 
Parker in these words : — 

Rochester, N. Y., Feb. 2, 1858. 
My dear Sir, — I am again out of Kansas, and am at this time 
concealing my whereabouts; but for very different reasons, however, 
from those I liad for doing so at Boston last sjirins:. I have nearly 
perfected arrangements for carrying out an important measure in 
wliich the world lias a deep interest, as well as Kansas ; and only 
lack from five to eight hundred >lollars to enable me to do so, — the 



i 



1858. J THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 435 

same object for which I asked for secret-service money last fall. It 
is my only errand here; and I have written to some of our mutual 
friends in regard to it, but they none of them understand my views 
so well as you do, and 1 cannot explain witliout their tirst committing 
themselves more than I know (jf their doing. I have heard that 
Parker Pillsbury and some others in your quarter hold out ideas 
similar to those on which I act ; but I have no personal acquaintance 
with theui, and know nothing of their influence or means. Cannot 
you eitlier by direct or iudii'ect action do something to further me f 
Do you not kuovv of some parties whom you could induce to give 
their abolition theories a thoroughly practical shape? I hope this 
will prove to be the last time I shall be driven to harass a friend in 
such a way. Do you think any of my Gariisouian friends, eitlier at 
Boston, Worcester, or any otlier place, can be induced to supply a 
little " straw," if I will absolutely make " bricks " '1 I have wiitten 
George L. Stearns, Esq., of Medford, and Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of 
Concord ; but 1 am not informed as to how deeply-dyed Abolitionists 
those friends are, and mutit beg you to consider this conniiuuication 
strictly confidential, — unless you know ot jjarties who will feel and 
act, and hold tiieir peace. I want to bring the thing about during 
the next sixty days. Please write N. Hawkins, care Williatn J. 
Watkins, Esq., Kochester, N. Y. 

Very resjjectfully your friend, 

John Brown. ^ 

Brown's letters of the same date and for a few weeks af- 
ter, to Colonel Higginson and to me, were of a similar tenor, 
though rather more explicit ; but they conveyed no distinct 
intin:ation of his plans. He wrote to Higginson, February 
2, from Rochester: "1 am here, concealing my whereabouts 
for good reasons (as I think), — not, however, from any 
anxiety about my personal safety. . I have been told that you 
are both a true man and a true Abolitionist, and I partly 
believe the whole story. Last fall I undertook to raise from 
five hundred to one thousand dollars for secret service, and 
succeeded in getting five hundred dollars. I now w-ant to 
get, for the perfecting of by far the most important under- 
taking of my whole life, five hundred to eight hundred 
dollars within the next sixty days. I have written Rev. 
Theodore Parker, George L. Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn, 
Esqs., on the subject, but I do not know as either Mr. 

1 Weiss's Life of Theodore Parker, vol. ii. pp. 163, 164. 



436 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

Stearns or Mr. Sanborn are Abolitionists. I suppose they 
are." On the 12th of February he wrote again, in response 
to a remark in Higginson's reply about the Underground 
Railroad in Kansas : " Kailroad business on a somewhat ex- 
tended scale is the identical object for which I am trying to 
get means. I have been connected with that business, as 
commonly conducted, from my boyhood, and never let an 
oiiportunity slip. I have been operating to some purpose 
the past season ; but I now have a measure on foot that I 
feel sure would awaken in you something more than a com- 
mon interest if you could understand it. I have just writ- 
ten my friends G. L. Stearns and F. B. Sanborn, asking them 
to meet nie for consultation at Peterboro', N. Y. I am 
very anxious to have you come along, certain as I feel that 
you will never regret having been one of the council." It 
w^as inconvenient for any of the persons addressed to take 
the long journey proposed ; and on tlie 13th I wrote for 
myself and ]Mr. Stearns, inviting Brown to visit Boston, and 
offering to pay his travelling expenses. To this request 
Brown replied, February IT : " It would be almost impos- 
sible for me to pass through Albany, Springfield, or any of 
those parts, on my way to Boston, and not have it known ; 
and my reasons for keeping quiet are such that when I left 
Kansas I kept it from every friend there ; and I suppose it 
is still understood that I am hiding somewhere in the Terri- 
tory ; and such will be the idea until it comes to be gener- 
ally known that I am in these parts. I want to continue 
that impression as long as I can, or for the present. I want 
very much to see Mr. Stearns, and also Mr. Parker, and it 
may be that I can before "long; but I must decline accepting 
your kind offer at present, and, sorry as I am to do so, ask 
you both to meet me by the middle of next week at the 
furthest. I wrote Mr. Higginson, of Worcester, to meet me 
also. It may be he would come on with you. My reasons 
for keeping still are sufficient to keep me from seeing my 
wife and children, much as I long to do so. I will endeavor 
to explain when I see you." ^ 

1 This letter was written from Douglass's house, at Rochester, but fixed 
the place of meeting at Gerrit Smitli's house in Peterboro'. At this time 
one of my Kansas corresix)udents sent wonl tliat Brown liad disappf^ared 



II 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 437 

On the 7th of February my friend Edwin Morton wrote 
me from Gerrit Smith's house, giving the substance of a 
similar letter which Smith had just received from Brown. 
'* He wants from five to eight hundred dollars for secret 
service, and thinks he can do more with it than all that has 
yet been done. That is his errand. He wishes to avoid 
publicity, and so does not come here, and will not see his 
family. Meantime he is staying Avith Fred Douglass under 
the nom, de guerre of N. Hawkins, — to which name he de- 
sires letters addressed, care of Douglass. This is news, — 
he 'expects to overthrow slavery' in a large part of the 
country." On the 19th of February Morton wrote me again : 
''John Brown is here, and asks me to say he is waiting here 
to see you. If you cannot come within the time he named, 
— say the middle of next week, — let him know by letter 
here (Peterboro'), enclosed to me, when you can come. He 
says 't is not possible tor him to go East under the circum- 
stances. He would very much like to see you. He is pleased 
to find Mr. Smith more in harmony with his general plan 
than he thought he might be." On the next day (February 
20) Brown himself wrote as follows to his son . — 

Peterboro', N. Y., Feb. 20, 1858. 

Dear sox Johx, — I am here with our good friends Gerrit Smith 
and wife, who, I am most happy to tell you, are ready to go in for 
a share in the whole trade. I will say (in the language of anutherj, 
in regard to this most encouraging fact, " My soul doth magnify the 
Lord." I seem to be almost marvellously helped ; and to His name 
be praise ! I had to-day no particular thing to write, other than to 
let you share in my encouragement. I have been looking f(jr a letter 
flora you to be forwarded from Rochester ; and may get one to-day. 
When I get one, will write you further. I do not expect to remain 
here long, but shall be glad to have you write me here, enclosing to 
Caleb Calkins,^ Esq., Peterboro', Madison County, N. Y. Jason 
and family well on the 8th. 

Y^our affectionate father, John Brown. 

from among them, and that some of tlie Kansas people thouEcht him insane. 
All this, combined with the complaints and intimations of Forbes, led me 
to imagine that Brown had some plan for an uprising of slaves ; but, if so, 
I supposed it would be on the Kansas border, or in some part of Missouri. 
^ This was the faithful clerk of Gerrit Smith, to whose hands most of 



438 LIFE AXD LETTERS OF JOHN BROWX. [1858 

Feb. 22. 

I have still need of all the help I can possibly get, but am greatly 
encouraged in asking fur it. Mr. Smith thinks you miglit operate 
to more advantage in New England, about Boston, than by giiing to 
Washington, — say in the large country towns. I think he may be 
right. Do as you think best. 

Yours ever, J. B. 

Theodore Parker and George Stearns being at the time un- 
able to accept this second and pressing request from Brown 
for a meeting at Peterboro', I determined to go, and invited 
Colonel Higginson to join me at Worcester, February 20. 
But in fact I made the journey alone, and reached Cana- 
stota, ten miles from Peterboro', on the afternoon of Mon- 
day, February 22. There T either took the stage-coach, or 
was met by IVIr. Smith's sleigh, and drove up over the hills 
to his house, where I arrived early in the evening of W^ash- 
ington's birthday. Brown had been there since the preced- 
ing Thursday, and had unfolded much of his plan to the 
Smiths. After dinner, and after a few minutes spent with 
other guests in the parlor, I went witli Mr. Smith, John 
Brown, a^nd my classmate Morton, to the room of IMr, j\Ior- 
ton in the third story. Here, in the long winter evening 
which followed, the whole outline of Brown's campaign in 
Virginia was laid before our little council, to the astonish- 
ment and almost the dismay of those present. The constitu- 
tion which he had drawn up for the government of his men, 
and of such territory as they might occupy, was exhibited 
by Brown, its provisions recited and explained, the projDosed 
movements of his men indicated, and the middle of May was 
named as the time of the attack. To begin this hazardous 
adventure he asked for but eight hundred dollars, and would 
think himself rich with a thousand. Being questioned and 
opposed by his friends, he laid before them in detail his 
methods of organization and fortification ; of settlement in 
the South, if that were possible, and of retreat through the 

his large pecuniary affairs were intrusted, and whose business it was in such 
matters as this to " hear and sec, and say nothing." Morton, at that time 
t)ie tutor of Mr. Smith's son, was born in Plymouth, Mass., of the Pilgrim 
stock. 



-Ji 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 439 

North, if necessary ; and his theory of the way in which 
such an invasion would be received in the country at large. 
He desired from his friends a patient hearing of his state- 
ments, a candid opinion concerning his plan, and, if that 
were favorable, then such aid in money and support as we 
could give him. We listened until after midnight, proposing 
objections and raising difficulties ; but nothing could shake 
the purpose of the old Puritan. Every difficulty had been 
foreseen and provided against in some manner ; the grand 
difficulty of all, — the manifest hopelessness of undertaking 
anything so vast with such slender means, — was met with 
the text of Scripture : " If God be for us, who can be against 
us ?" He had made nearly all his arrangements : he had so 
many men enlisted, so many hundred weapons ; all he now 
wanted was the small sum of money. With that he would 
open his campaign in the spring, and he had no doubt that 
the enterprise " would pay,^' as he said. 

On the 23d of February the discussion was renewed, and, 
as usually happened when he had time enough. Captain 
Brown began to prevail over the objections of his friends.^ 
At any rate, they saw that they must either stand by him, 
or leave him to dash himself alone against the fortress he 
was determined to assault. To withhold aid would only 
delay, not prevent him ; nothing short of betraying him to 
the enemy would do that. As the sun was setting over the 
snowy hills of the region where we met, I walked for an 
hour with Gerrit Smith among those woods and fields (then 
included in his broad manor) which his father had purchased 
of the Indians and bequeathed to him. BroAvn was left at 
home by the fire, discussing points of theology with Charles 
Stewart, an old captain under Wellington, who also hap- 
pened to be visiting at the house. Mr. Smith restated in 
his eloquent way the daring propositions of Brown, whose 
import he understood fully ; and then said in substance : 
" You see how it is ; our dear old friend has made up his 
mind to this course, and cannot be turned from it. We 
cannot give him up to die alone ; we must support him. I 

^ " All, gentlemen," said Edwin Copiioc at Harper's Ferry, "yon don't 
know Captain Brown : when he wants a man to do a thing he does it." 



4-40 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

will raise so many hundred dollars for him ; you must lay 
the case before your friends in Massachusetts and perhaps 
they will do the same. I see no other way." For myself, 
I had reached the same conclusion, and engaged to bring 
the scheme at once to the attention of the three Massachu- 
setts men to whom Brown had written, and also of Dr. 
S. G. Howe, who had sometimes favored action almost as 
extreme as this proposed by Brown. I returned to Boston 
on the 25th of February, and on the same day communi- 
cated the enterprise to Theodore Parker and Wentworth 
Higginson. At the suggestion of Parker, Brown, who had 
gone to Brooklyn, K. Y., was invited to visit Boston secretly, 
and did so the 4th of March, taking a room at the American 
House, in Hanover Street, and remaining for the most part 
in his room ^ daring the four days of His stay. Mr. Parker 
was deeply interested in the project, but not very san- 
guine of its success. He wished to see it tried, believing 
that it must do good even if it failed. Brown remained at 
tlie American House until Monday, March 8, when he de- 
parted for Philadelphia. On the Gth of March he wrote to 
his son John from Boston : " My call here has met with a 
most hearty response, so that I feel assured of at least toler- 
able success. I ought to be thankful for this. All has been 
effected by quiet meeting of a few choice friends, it being 
scarcely known that I have been in the city." 

Before visiting Gerrit Smith, and while doubly occupied 
in managing his delicate negotiation with Forbes, and ar- 
ranging for a full disclosure of his purposes to his wealthy 
friends, John Brown, from his hiding-place in Rochester, 
addressed this pathetic letter to his household in the wintry 
forest of North Elba : — 

To his Family. 

Rochester, N. Y., Jan. 30, 1858. 
My dear Wife and Children, every one, — I am (praised 
be God I) once more in York State. Whether I shall be permitted 
to visir you or not this winter or spring, I cannot now say ; but it is 
some relief of mind to feel that I am again so near yon. Possibly, if 
1 cannot go to see you, I may be able to devise some way for some 

^ This was No. 126, I remember. 



I 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 441 

one or more of you to meet me somewhere. The anxiety I feel to 
see my wife and children once more I am unable to describe. I want 
exceedingly to see my big baby and Ruth's baby, and to see how that 
little company of sheep hxds about this time. The cries of my poor 
sorrow-stricken despairing children, whose " tears on their cheeks " 
are ever in my eyes, and whose sighs are ever in my ears, may how- 
ever prevent my enjoying the happiness I so much desire. But, 
courage, courage, courage ! — the great w^ork of my life (the uuseen 
Hand that " guided me, and who has indeed holdeu my riglit hand, 
may hold it still," though 1 Lave not Icnowu him at all as I ought) I 
may yet see accom{)lished (God helping), and be permitted to return, 
and " rest at evening." 

O my daughter Ruth ! could any plan be devised whereby you 
could let Henry go " to scliool " (as you expressed it in your letter to 
him while in Kansas), I would ratlier now have him " for another 
term " than to have a hundred average scholars. I have a particular 
and very important, but not dangerous, place for him to till in the 
" school," and I know of no man living so well adapted to fill it. I 
am quite confident some way can be devised so that you and your 
children could be witli hiin, and be quite happy even, and safe ; but 
God forbid me to flatter you into trouble ! I did not do it before. 
My dear child, could you face such music if, on a full explanation, 
Hem-y could be satisfied tliat his family might be safe f I would 
make a similar inquiry of my own dear wife ; but I have kept her 
tumbling here and tliere over a stormy and tempestuous sea for so 
many years that I cannot ask her such a questicm. The natural in- 
genuity of Salmon in connection with some experience he and Oliver 
have both had, would point him out as the next best man I could now 
select ; but I am dumb in his case, as also in the case of Watson and 
all my other sons. Jason's qualifications are, some of them, like 
Henry's also. 

Do not noise it about that I am in these parts, and direct to N. 
Hawlvins, care of Frederick Douglass, Rochester, N. Y. I want to 
hear how you are all supplied with winter clothing, boots, etc. 

God bless you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father, John Brown. 

Ruth's reply to this letter should not fail to be quoted 
here : — 

Ruth Thompson to John Brown. 

North Elba, Feb. 20, 1858. 
My dear Father, — Your letter of January 30 we received this 
week, it having lain in the postoffice a week. Oliver went to the 



442 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

office and got our news ; there were two letters for ine, but the 
postmaster did not give him yours. We did not get it this week in 
time to answer it, or we shoukl have done so immediately. I am 
sorry tor such a delay. We were rejoiced to hear that you weie so 
near us, and we hope that you can visit us yet before leaving York 
State. It really seems hard that we cannot see you, when you have 
been so long from home ; yet we are glad that you still feel encour- 
aged. Dear father, you have asked me rather of a hard question. 
I want to answer you wisely, but hardly know how. I cannot bear 
the thought of Henry leaving me again ; yet I know I am selfish. 
When 1 think of my poor desjjised sisters, that are deprived of both 
husband and children, I feel deeply for them; and were it not fcr 
my little children, I would go almost anywhere with Henry, if by 
going I could do them any good. Wliat is the place j'ou wish him to 
fill? How long would you want him? Would my going be of any 
service to him or you ? I should be very glad to be wnth him, if it 
would not be more expense than what good we could do. I say tve ; 
could I not do something for the cause ? Henry's feelings are the 
same that tliey have been. He says : " Tell father that I think he 
places too high an estimate on my qualifications as a schtdar ; and tell 
him I should like much to see him." I wish we could see yon, and 
then we should know better what to do ; but will you not write to us 
and give us a full explanation of what you want him to do ? . . . 
Please wi'ite often. 

Your affectionate daughter, 

Ruth Thompson. 

In a letter of February 24 from Gerrit Smith's house. 
Brown wrote to his wife : " I have been here for a short 
time, and am making middling good progress, I think. 
Mr. Smith and family go all lengths with me." A week 
later he was more explicit : — 

To his Wife. 

New York, March 2, 1858. 

My dear Wife, — I received yours of the 1 7th of February yes- 
terday ; was very glad of it, and to know that you had got the ten 
d(dlars safe. I am having a constant series of both great encourage- 
ments and discouragements, but am yet able to say, in view of all, 
" hitherto the Lord hath heljjed me." I shall send Salmon some- 
thing as soon as I can, and will try to get you the articles you men- 
tion. I find a much more earnest feeling among the colored people 



18r>8.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 443 

than ever before ; but that i;- by no moans unusual. On the whole, 
the language of Providence to ine would certainly seem to say, 
" Try on." I Hatter myself that I may be able to go and see you 
again before a great while ; but 1 may not be able. I long to see 
you all. All were well with John and Jason a few days since. I 
had a good visit with Mr. Sanborn at Gerrit Smith's a few days ago. 
It would be no very strange thing if he should join me. May God 
abundantly bless you all ! No one writes me but you. 
Your affectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

As this letter shows, Brown had left Peterboro' in or- 
der to visit and confer with the colored people of New 
York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia concerning his main 
plan. He was to have visited Philadelphia with Douglass 
before going to l)Oston ; but while in Brooklyn he received 
this letter from Douglass : — 

Syracuse, Feb. 27, 1858. 

My dear Friend, — "When we parted, we were to meet in Phila- 
delphia on Friday, ^larch 5. I write now to postpone going to 
Philadelphia until Wednesday, March 10. Please write me at 
Rochester if this will do, and if you wish me to come at that time. 
You can, I hope, find work enough in and about New York up to 
that date. Please make my warmest regards to Mrs. and Mr. 
Gloucester, and accept that and more for yourself. 

Fred Douglass. 

John Bkown, Esq. 

Brown answered this note March 2, and had previously 
written me from Brooklyn as follow^s : — 

Brooklyn, Feb. 26, 1858. 
F. B. Sanborn, Esq., Coftcord, Mass. 

My dear Friend, — I want to put into the hands of my young 
men copies of Plutarch's "Lives," Irving's " Life of Washington," 
the best-written Life of Napoleon, and other similar books, together 
with maps and statistics of States. Could you not find persons who 
might be induced to contribute old copies (or other ones) of tliat 
character, or find some person who would be willing to undertake to 
collect some for me ? I also want to get a quantity of best white 
cotton drilling, — some hundred pieces, if T can get it. The use of 
this article I will hereafter explain. Mr. Morton will forward your 



444 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

letter here to ine. Anything you may be disposed to say to me 
within two or three days j)lease enclose to James N. Gloucester, 
No. 265 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

P. S. Persons who would devote their time to the good work, as 
agents in diHerent parts, might do incalculable good. Can you find 
any such ? 

Yours, J. B. 

From Gerrit Smith's house, the day I departed for Bos- 
ton, Brown wrote to me one of those touching and prophetic 
letters which so seldom flowed from his pen, and which I 
have cherished as the most complete evidence of his confi- 
dence in my friendship and unison with him : — 

John Brown to F. B. Sanborn. 

Peterboro', N. Y., Feb. 24, 1858. 

My dear Friend, — Mr. Morton has taken the liberty of saying 
tome that you felt half inclined to make a common cause with me. 
I greatly rejoice at this ; for I believe when you come to look at the 
ample field I labor in, and the rich harvest which not only this entire 
country but the wliole world during the present and future genera- 
tions may reap from its successful cultivation, you will feel that you 
are out of your element until you find you are in it, an entire unit. 
What an inconceivable amount of good you might so effect by your 
counsel, your example, your encouragement, your natural and ac- 
quired ability for active service ! And then, how very little we can 

possibly lose ! Certainly the cause is enough to live for, if not to 

for. I have only had this one opportunity, in a life of nearly sixty 
years ; and could I be continued ten times as long again, I might 
not again have another equal opportunity. God has honoi-ed but 
comparatively a very small part of manlcind with any possible chance 
for such mighty and soul-satisfying rewards. But. my dear friend, 
if you should make up your mind to do so, I trust it will be wholly 
from the promptings of your own spirit, after having thoroughly 
counted the cost. I would Hatter no man into such a measure, if I 
could do it ever so easily. 

I expect nothing but to " endure hardness ;" but T expect to effect 
a mighty conquest, even though it be like the last victory of Sam- 
sou. I felt for a number of years, in earlier life, a steady, strong 



yt»i,'MXTXrk<.o^A^I,')^-<r7o^i^0j //A^ t'yCt<^^.i_^ C^H-i-tZ^y-K ^^~iA^/9Xf^ ^.A^U^ 









.j-M^ iri^ -^j^^^xo. 9<^-yw Jy^-i^o/ : t^J'l*^ lh,(tn/<,'v\.& 7%^^2 :»->^'jL/ % ( fu-td^.' 

rCi-^y Tru^t/A-j yfr->o^ /n-<f-tr ^-^!'> ortySt-t.^^^ Ji uXM^Ury- ». Im.>-^ 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 445 

desire to die : but since I saw any prospect of becoming a *' reaper " 
in the great harvest, I have not only felt quite willing to live, but 
have enjoyed lite much ; and am now rather anxious to live for a 
few years more. 

Your sincere friend, 

John Brown. ^ 

Till I follow my noble friend to that other world on 
which his hopes were fixed, I can never read this letter 
without emotion. Yet it did not persuade me to comply 
with his wish. Long accustomed to guide my life by lead- 
ings and omens from that shrine whose oracles may destroy 
but can never deceive, I listened in vain, through months 
of doubt and anxiety, for a clear and certain call. But it 
was revealed to me that no confidence could be too great, 
no trust nor affection too extreme, towards this aged poor 
man whom the Lord had chosen as his champion. In any 
event of his designs, — had he failed as conspicuously as 
he has succeeded, — I could still have had nothing to regret 
in the little aid I afforded him, except that I could not aid 
him more. The work upon which he entered was danger- 
ous, and even desperate ; none saw this better than those 
who stood with him : but his commission was from a Court 
that could bear him out, whatever the result. It is a 
maxim even of worldly prudence that desperate diseases 
require desperate remedies, — m rebus arduis ac tenui sjye 
fortisslma quceque consilia sunt optima. But it is also the 

1 This letter, which is now in possession of Mrs. Stearns, was received 
by me soon after my return to Concord. On my way through Boston I 
had communicated to Theodore Parker (at his house in Exeter Phice, to 
which I had taken Brown in January, 1857, and where he met Mr. Gar- 
rison and other Abolitionists) the substance of Brown's plan ; and upon 
receiving the letter I transmitted it to Parker. He retained it, so that it 
was out of my possession in October, 1859, when I destroyed most of the 
letters of Brown and others which could compromise our friends. Some 
time afterward, probably in 1862, when Parker had been dead two years, 
my letters to him came back to me, and among them this epistle. It has 
to me an extreme value, from its association with the memory of my best 
and noblest friends ; but in itself it is also a remarkable utterance. That 
it did not draw me into the field as one of Brown's band was due to the 
circumstance that the interests of other persons were then too much in my 
hands and in my thoughts to permit a change of my whole course of life. 



44«» LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BKOWN. [1858. 

privilege of heroism, as of beauty and of sanctity, to iiu- 
pose its own conditions upon the behohler : they claim and 
they receive their due homage. A casual glance, a frivo- 
lous mind, might be deceived in John Brown. His homely 
garb and plain manners did not betoken greatness, but 
neither could they disguise it. That antique and magnani- 
mous character which amid wounds and fetters and fero- 
cious insults suddenly fastened the gaze of the whole 
world ; those words of startling simplicity uttered among 
the corpses of his men, or before his judges, or in his 
prison cell, and listened to by all mankind, — all things 
that were peculiar to John Brown and distinguished him 
among the multitude, lost nothing of their force when he 
was seen at nearer view and heard within the walls of a 
chamber. That impressive personality, whose echoes so 
long mied the air of our camps, lacked nothing of its effect 
upon the few wlio came within his influence before the 
world recognized him. We saw this lonely and obscure 
old man choosing poverty before wealth, renouncing the 
ties of affection, throwing away his ease, his reputation, 
and his life for the sake of a despised race and for " zeal to 
his country's ancient liberties." Moved by this example, 
shamed by this generosity, was it to be imagined that 
young men and devoted Abolitionists would examine cau- 
tiously the grounds of prudence, or timidly follow a scrupu- 
lous conservatism ? Without accepting Brown's plans as 
reasonable, we were prepared to second them merely because 
they were his, — under the impulse of that sentiment to 
which Andrew afterward gave utterance when he said : 
*' Whatever might be thouglit of John Brown's acts, John 
Brown himself was right." Three courses were open to us, 
— to aid him so far as we could ; to discountenance and op- 
pose liis plans ; or to remain neutral. Of course there was 
no thought of betraying his conhdence, nor of treating him 
as a madman incapable of counsel. And it was soon evi- 
dent that where Brown was concerned there could be no 
neutrality and no indifference. 

In the winter and spring of 1858 the Kansas rifles, pistols, 
etc., were in the care of John Brown, Jr., to whom his father 
wrote from Mr. Smith's house, Feb. 23, 1858 : — ... 



1858.J THE tLANS I>1SCL<JSED. 447 

*' 1 have become satisfii^d that it will be entirely best to have all 
my freight removed from Coiirieaut, and stored away safe with very 
quiet friends, and all marks removed from the boxes. ^ I have lately 
learned of some circumstances which satisfy nje that this will certainly 
be, a prudent measure ; and I wish you to efl'ect it as soon as you can 
without extra effort and sacrifice. Have not heard from you for some 
days. Write N. Hawkins, care of F. Douglass." 

The arrival of Brown in Boston was thus indicated, 
Barker being the first to learn it : — 

Brown to Theodore Parker. 

American House, Boston, March 4, 1858. 

My dear Sir, — I shall be most happy to see you at my room 
(126) in this house, at any and at all hours that may suit your own 
convenience, or that of friends. Mr. Sanborn asked me to be here 
by Friday evening, and as I was anxious to have all the time I could 
get, I came on at once. Please call by yourself and with friends as 
you can. Please inquire for Mr. (not Captain) Brown, of New 
York. Your friend, John Brown. 

Parker was one of the first persons who called on Brown 
during his short visit to Boston, which it was then sup- 
posed would be his last until he should have struck his 
great blow in Virginia. I had come from Gerrit Smith's 
house directly to Barker's house in Boston, and had com- 
municated Brown's plans to Parker at Brown's request and 
Smith's. On the same day at Worcester,^ and the next day 
at Boston, I told Higginson and Dr. S. G. Howe, as Brown 
desired me to do. I asked him what I should say to Mr. 

1 See note at the end of Chapter XIII., for the disposal of these arms 
and their removal to Harjier's Ferry. 

2 Before Brown had (piite converted us to his support at PeterVjoro', on 
the 23d of February, I began a letter to W\<i,'Xni-iO\\ which was never fin- 
ished, hut on the back of wliioh Brown tliat day drew rude outlines of his 
Virj^iuia forts. I have this slieet .still ; the fragment runs thus : "Dkar 
FiMEND, — You ought to be here to see our friend Hawkins, who is about 
entering largely into the wool business, in wliich he has been more or less 
engaged all his life. He now has a plan — the result of many years' care- 
ful study — " Here the note ends : and on the other side of the sheet are 
Brown's pencillings, above which 1 then wrote, "Woollen machinery, in- 
vented by N. Hawkins." 



448 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

Stearns. Brown replied that he would make the communi- 
cation himself in Boston, as he did about March 5. He de- 
sired that Wendell Phillips should not be informed, nor did 
he ever reveal his plans fully to Phillips. On the suc- 
ceeding Friday, Saturday, and Sunday he saw Parker, Dr. 
Howe, Mr. Stearns, Mr. Higginson, and two or three other 
persons. He did not think it prudent to show himself at 
Parker's Sunday-evening reception, on the 7th of March, as 
he had done when in Boston the year before ; and therefore 
he wrote Mr. Parker a letter, which I carried to him that 
afternoon. 

Brown to Theodore Parker. 

Boston, Mass., March 7, 1858. 

My dear Sir, — Since you know I have an almost countless brood 
of poor hungry chickens to "scratch for," you will not reproach me 
for scratching even on tlie Sabbath. At any rate, I trust God will 
not. I want you to inidertaice to provide a substitute for an address 
you saw last season, directed to the officers and soldiers of the United 
States Army. The ideas contained in that adih'ess I of course like, 
for I furnished the skeleton. I never had the abiUty to clothe those 
ideas in huiguage at all to satisfy myself; and I was by no means 
satisfied with the style of that address, and do not know as I can give 
any correct idea of what I want. I will, however, try. 

In the first place it must be short, or it will not be generally read. 
It must be in the simplest or plainest language, without the least 
affectation of the scholar about it, and yet be worded with great 
clearness and power. The anonymous writer must (in the language 
of the Paddy) be " afther others," and not " afther himself at all, at 
all." If the spirit that communicated Franklin's Poor Richard (or 
some other good spirit) would dictate, I think it would be quite as 
well employed as the "dear sister spirits" have been for some years 
past. Tlie address should be appropriate, and particularly adapted 
to the peculiar circumstances we anticipate, and should look to tlie 
actual change of service from that of Satan to the service of God. It 
should be, in short, a most earnest and powerful appeal to men's 
sense of right and to their feelings of humanity. Soldiers are men, 
and no man can certainly calculate the value and importance of get- 
ting a single "nail into old Captain Kidd's chest." It should be 
provided beforehand, and be ready in advance to distribute by all 
persons, male and female, who may be disposed to favor the right. 

I also want a similar short address, appropriate to the peculiar 
circumstances, intended for all persons, old and young, male and 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 449 

female, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, to be sent out broadcast 
over the entire nation. So by every male and female prisoner on 
being set at liberty, and to be read by them during confinement. I 
knovi' that men will listen, and reflect too, under such circumstances. 
Persons will hear your antislavery lectures and abolition lectures 
when they have become ■ virtually slaves themselves. The impres- 
sions made on prisoners by kindness and plain dealing, instead of 
barbarous and cruel treatment, such as they might give, and instead 
of being slaughtered like wild reptiles, as they might very naturally 
e.vpect, are not only powerful but lasting. Females are susceptible 
of being carried away entirely by the kindness of an intrepid and 
magnanimous soldier, even when his bare name was but a terror the 
day previous.^ Now, dear sir, I have told you about as well as I 
know how, what I am anxious at once to secure. Will you write 
the tracts, or get them written, so that I may commence colporteur? 
Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

P. S. If I should never see you again, please drop me a line 
(enclosed to Stephen Smith, Esq., Lombard Street, Philadelphia), 
at once, saying what you will encourage me to expect. You are at 
liberty to make any prudent use of this to stir up any fiiend. 
Yours for the right, 

J. B. 

Perhaps Brown was not aware how hard was the task 
imposed by these masterly directions in the art of writing. 
Parker, who was then overweighted with work, never under- 
took to write the tracts desired, nor were they written by 
any one else ; but Parker sent Brown from his library on 
tliis Sunday the report of General McClellan on the Euro- 
pean armies, which was then a new book, and was thought 
likely to be of service to Brown. At the same time Brown 
praised Plutarch as a book he had read with great profit for 

1 A Kansas newspaper said in 1859 : " At the sacking of Osawatomie 
one of the most bitter proslavery men in Lykins County was killed. His 
name was Ed. Timmons. Sometime afterward Brown stopped at the log- 
house where Timmons had lived. His widow and children were there, and 
in great destitution. He inquired into their wants, relieved their dis- 
tresses, and supported them until their friends in Missouri, informed 
through Brown of the condition of Mrs. Timmons, had time to come to 
her and carry her to her former home. Mrs. Timmons fully ajipreciated 
the great kindness thus shown her, but never learned that John Brown 
was her benefactor." 

29 



450 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

its military and moral lessons, and particularly mentioned 
the life of Sertorius, the Roman commander who so long 
carried on a partisan warfare in Spain. He wished, as he 
had before written me, to get a few copies of Plutarch for 
his men to read in camp, and inquired particularly about 
the best edition. 

Although Brown communicated freely to the four persons 
just named his plans of attack and defence in Virginia, it 
is not known that he spoke to any but me of his pur- 
pose to surprise the arsenal and town of Harper's Ferry. 
Both Dr. Howe and Mr. Stearns testified before Mason's 
committee, in 1860, that they were ignorant of Brown's plan 
of attack ; which was true so far as the place and manner 
of beginning the campaign were concerned. It is probable 
that in 1858 Brown had not definitely resolved to seize 
Harper's Ferry ; yet he spoke of it to me beside his coal-fire 
in the American House, putting it as a question, rather, with- 
out expressing hisowu purpose. I questioned him a little 
about it ; but it then passed from my mind, and I did not 
think of it again until the attack had been made, a year and 
a half afterward. That it was then seriously a part of his 
plan may be inferred, however, from letters to his son John 
written from Douglass's house, Feb. 4-5, 1858, in which he 
said : " I have been thinking that I would like to have you 
make a trip to Bedford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, and 
Uniontown, in Pennsylvania, travelling slowly along, and 
inquiring out every man on the way, or every family of the 
right stripe, and getting acquainted with them as much as 
you could. When you look at the location of those places, 
you will readily perceive the advantage of getting up some 
acquaintance in those parts." After advising his son to go 
to Washington and call on such members of Congress as Mr. 
Giddings and John Sherman of Ohio, Dr. Chaffee and Mr. 
Burlingame of Massachusetts, and Mr. Olin, of Troy, X. Y., 
in hopes to raise five hundred or one thousand dollars by 
their aid for secret service (" ^Er. Burlingame gave me fifty 
dollars at Boston "), Brown writes : " You can say to our 
friends that I am out from Kansas for that express purpose. 
I think Mr. Sherman and Giddings will give you a good lift. 
Eli Thayer is a particular friend. T have no doubt he would 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 451 

hook on his team. ... Do not lisp my plans or theories of 
any kind, other than by mere hints to such persons as will 
first commit themselves. You may say we are as strong 
Abolitionists as Gerrit Smith." March 4, Brown wrote 
from Boston : " As it may require some time to hunt out 
friends at Bedford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, Hagerstown, 
Md., or even Harj^er^s Ferry, Va., I would like to have you 
arrange your business so as to set out very soon, unless you 
hear to the contrary from me right away. Have pretty 
much concluded not to have you go to Washington. I have 
but little ' trust in princes ' myself ; still I have no doubt 
but something might be done there. I expect to go from 
here to Philadelphia with our Rochester friend in three or 
four days." March 6, he wrote again from Boston : '' My 
^^call here has met with a most hearty response, so that I feel 
assured of at least tolerable success. I ought to be thankful 
for this ; all has been effected by quiet meetings of a few 
choice friends, it being scarcely known that I have been 
in the city. I go from here to Philadelphia, to be there 
by the 10th instant. I want you to meet me there, if 
possible, on or before the 15th, as I will wait until then 
to see or learn from you. (Day before yesterday, when I 
wrote, I did not fully understand what my success would 
be here.) I expect to meet our Rochester and other choice 
friends there, and to be accompanied by one, at least, from 
here." 

John Brown, Jr., accordingly met his father, with Doug- 
lass, Henry Highland Garnet, Stephen Smith, and other col- 
ored men at Philadelphia, conferred with them there, and 
then went on with his father to New York and New Ha- 
ven, where they called (March 18) at the house of Mr. W. H. 
Russell. From New Haven they went, March 19, to New 
York, and thence to North Elba, where they arrived March 
23, having travelled on foot from Elizabethtown to save 
time and money. They remained at North Elba a few days, 
and reached the house of Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro', as jNIr. 
Smith's diary shows, April 2, 1858.^ They remained there 

1 About a month hefore the Forbes disclosures, which caused the post- 
poiienicut of the attack until 1859. 



452 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

from ten o'clock that day till the next morning at six, and 
reported to Mr. Smith (" who seemed then fully acquainted 
with the Virginia plan, and in hearty sympathy with it," 
says John Brown, Jr.) what had been said and done at Bos- 
ton and Philadelphia. I had already written to Mr. Smith, 
according to our agreement of February 23, what Brown's 
Boston friends could and would do. Both father and son 
discussed the plan with Mr. Smith in his study, and Mrs. 
Smith took part in the conversation, as she had done when 
I was at Peterboro' six weeks before. During the afternoon 
Brown and Smith walked out to Mr. Smith's former home, 
a mile or two away, and talked over the scheme alone. 
When they returned, Mr. Smith (says John Brown, Jr.,) 
" was buoyant and hopeful about it, and showed great ani- 
mation and interest." 

From Peterboro' the father and son went to the house of 
Douglass, in Rochester, where they separated about April 
4, 1858, John Brown proceeding at once to St. Catherine's 
in Canada, whence he wrote to his son on the 8th of April 
as follows : — 

" I came on here direct with J. W. Loguen the day after you 
left Rochester. I am succeeding, to all appearance, beyond iny ex- 
pectations. Harriet Tubman hooked on bis whole team at oncc.^ He 
(Harriet) is the most of a man, naturally, that I ever met with. 
There is the most abundant material, and of the right quality, in 
this quarter, beyond all doubt. _ Do not forget to write Mr. Case 
(near Rochester) at once about hunting up every person and family 
of the reliable kind about, at, or near Bedford, Chambersburg, 
Gettysburg, and Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, and also Hagerstown and 
vicinity, Maryland, and Harper^s Ferry, Vn. The names and resi- 
dences of all, I want to have sent me at Linden ville." 

This shows that Brown was constantly thinking of the 
place where he finally made the attack ; yet John Brown, 
Jr., declares that he did not suppose that to be the place 
fixed upon, but some less accessible spot in the mountains 
near by. He testified on this point in 1867 : " According 
to the plans of John Brown, as explained to me by him, and 
talked over at an interview between John Brown, Gerrit 

1 Tills was a woman. See p. 453. 



1858. J THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 453 

Smith, and myself in the summer of 1859,^ Harper's Ferry 
was not designated as the place of attack, nor was any par- 
ticular place named ; but it was expressly stated that the 
first blow would be struck at some place in Virginia or 
Maryland ; and the news of the attack on Harper's Ferry 
surprised me, Vjoth on account of the place upon which it 
had been made and the time when it occurred, as I did not 
expect it at so early a period." 

On the 14th of April Brown was still at St. Catherine's 
among the Canadian fugitives from slavery. The woman 
of whom he spoke in his letter of April 8 was temporarily 
living there among those she had helped away from bon- 
dage^ but her more permanent home was in Auburn, N. Y., 
on some property she had bought of Senator Seward. She 
was fully conversant with Brown's plans, and did what she 
could in her wild sibylline way to further them. From 
Canada he went to Chicago, where he was on the 25th of 
April. But on his way westward he sent this cautionary 
letter to North Elba : — 

To his Family. 

— Ingersol, Canada West, April 16, 1858. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — Since I wrote you 
I have thought it possible, though not probable, that some persons 
might be disposed to hunt for any property I may be supposed to 
possess, on account of liabilities I incurred while concerned with Mr. 
Perkins. Such claims I ought not to pay if I had ever so much 
given me for my service in Kansas, as most of you well know I 
gave up all I then had to Mr. Perkins while with him. I think if 
Henry and Ruth have not yet made out a deed, as was talked of, 
they had better not do it at present, but merely sign a receipt I now 

^ Allusion is here made to a second visit of John Brown and his son 
together at Peterboro' a few months before the attack. When in consulta- 
tion with Mr. Smith, says John Brown, Jr., " My fatlier informed him that 
he had so far got his plans perfected that within a few months at least he 
should strike the blow. The place in Pennsylvania at which arms, etc., 
should be first sent had been fixed upon previous to this time. It was 
Chambersbnrg; and the whole plan, as far as then matured, was fully 
made known to Mr. Smitli. The exact place had not been determined 
on, but it had been determined to commence operations in tlie vicinity 
of Harper's Ferry." 



454 LIFE A^^D LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

send, which can be held by Watson ; and I also think that when the 
contract of Gerrit Smith with Franklin and Samuel Thompson is 
found, he had better lay it by carefully with the receipt, and that all 
the family had better decline saying anything about their land mat- 
ters. Should any disturbance ever be made, it will most likely come 
directly or indirectly through a scoundrel by the name of Warren, 
who defrauded Mr. Perkins and me out of several thousand dollars. 
He may set persons we suppose to be friends (who may, in fact, be 
so) to inquiring out matters. It can do no harm to decline saying 
much about such things; you can very properly say the land belongs 
to the family. 1 If a deed has been made by Henry and Ruth, it 
need not be recorded at present. I expect to leave for Iowa in a few 
days ; write me at Chicago, directing to Jason Brown, care of John 
Jones, Esq., Box 764. May God bless you all ! 
Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

P. S. Show this to John when he gets on. Henry and Ruth 
should both sign the receipt. 

Springdale, Iowa, April 27, 1858. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — We start from here 
to-day, and shall write you again when we stop, which will be in 
two or three days. I have just bought eiglit barrels of flour for you, 
which will be sliipped to Watson, care of James A. Allen, Westport. 
You can divide it among the different brandies of the family so as to 
make all as comfortable as may be. If I should not be able to send 
you money to pay the freight, you can jjerhaps sell some of it to 
some of your neighbors for cash, and pay the freight in that way. 
I shall try to send you some pork and leather socm. I am trying to 
arrange so as to have Henry come out to see me at Pennsylvania 
with Oliver (and any others), if it can be consistently done. I shall 
write Oliver and any otliers when and vvliere to find us, and also 
provide about travelling expenses. They will not probably be called 
on before the middle of May, and possibly not so soon. May God 
bless you all ! Write Jason Brown at Chatliam, Canada West. 
Yours ever, 

John Brown. 

P. S. The flour, taken either by John, Henry, Watson, or Sal- 
mon, may be credited to tlieir mother. Do not fail to write, all of 

you, — Ellen as well as the others. Yours, 

J. B. 

1 This relates to the farms bought with the subscription of one thousand 
dollars from Boston in 1857. 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 455 

Chicago, III., April 28, 1858. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, — The letters of 
Heiii-y, Kuth, and Oliver are all received, and most glad were we 
to get them. I am entirely satisfied with the arrangement about 
who shall go out surveying. Would it be entirely satisfactory all 
round to have Henry manage the farms for both families, and let 
Watson go with Oliver and friend Hinklcy ? Say frankly, wife and 
all concerned. Ten of the company got here this morning; three 
more will probably be on to-morrow. We that are now here leave 
for Canada West this evening. Owen is here, and is well. Write 
as directed before. I now enclose two drafts (amount, twenty-five 
dollars) to help pay travelling expenses, and shall send more. 
Acknowledge these. Will write again soon. God bless you all! 
Your afi'ectiouate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Chatham, Canada West, May 12, 1858. 

My dear Wipe and Children, every one, — I have just re- 
ceived Oliver's letter of the 14th of April ; also one from wife and 
Oliver, of the 5th iust. I am most glad of them ; and I am thank- 
ful to be able to say that all here were well yesterday, when Owen 
and some otliers left for the eastward. I with others remain behind 
to wait for funds to arrive. I have also a letter from John, dated 
April 22, enclosing linos from Forbes, with printed slips attaclied. 
It seems now, by what we can learn, that his management may 
occasion some hindrance ; that being the case, you at home will have 
the more time to prepare, and will wait for fuither advice in the 
matter. It would seem as though F. has a correspondent some- 
where. Can it be at Lindenville or New York ? I wish John 
would think over the matter, and see if he can get any light on the 
sul)ject, and write me, enclosing what F. has lately written him, 
and also the substance of what he has lately written F. I suspect 
some one in Dr. McCune Smith's confidence is furnishing F. with 
information. It must be traced out, and the utmost care observed in 
doing it, as well as prudence exercised in all that is said, written, or 
done. I shall write you as often as I can, and shall assist you all I 
can. I cannot say wliat either flour or pork will be worth when 
you get them ; you can easily find that out when you have them. 
Shall send you more money as soon as I can. It may be best to sell 
off much of the flour. I expect to leave here shortly, but I want to 
hear from you right away. Enclose in a sealed envelope, the outer 
one directed to James M. Bell, Cliatham, as above. Was very glad 
to hear from Ellen. May God bless and finally save you all I Ha'l 



456 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

a good Abolition convention here, from different parts, on the 8th 
and 10th iust. Constitution slightly amended and adopted, and so- 
ciety (^-gauized. Great unanimity prevailed. I hope you may be 
able to get the old granite monument home this summer. 
Your aflecliouate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Chatham, Canada West, May 25, 1858. 

Dear Wife and Children, every one, — Oliver's letter of 
the l!Jth is just received. I have to commend him for his prompti- 
tude in replying to mine, as well as the comprehensiveness, brevity, 
and spirit of that reply. We are completely nailed down at present, 
for want of funds ; and we may be obliged to remain inactive for 
months yet, for the same reason. You must all learn to be patient, 
— or, at least, I hope you will. If you have not been obliged to 
use the two di-afts (amount, twenty-five d(jllars) before you g<^t this, 
do try and hold them till I write you further. I have heard nothing 
from John since in March, and feel quite anxious on his account. 
You need not reply till further advised. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Meanwhile the Boston friends of Brown were receiving 
plain information that Forbes was at Washington, betraying 
the Virginia plan to Republican Senators, and perhaps to 
members of the proslavery Administration. Startled by 
this, some of us wrote to Brown at Cliatham, May 10, to 
which he soon replied thus : — 

John Brown to F. B. Sanborn. 

Chatham, Canada West, May 14, 1858. 

My dear Sir, — Your much-prized letter of the 10th inst. is re- 
ceived. I have only time to say at this moment that as it is an invari- 
able rule with me to be governed by circumstances, or, in other words, 
not to do anything while I do not know what to do, none of our friends 
need have any fears in relation to hasty or rash steps being taken by 
us. As knowledge is said to be power, we propose to become pos- 
sessed of more knowledge. We have many reasons for begging our 
Eastern friends to keep dear of F. personally, unless he throws him- 
self upon tliem. We have those who are thoroughly posted up to put 
on liis tnu'k, and we beg to ])e allowed to do so. We also beg our 
friends to supply us with three or four hundred dollars without delay, 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 457 

pledging ourselves not to act other than to secure perfect knowledge 
of facts in regard to what F. has really done, or will do, so that we 
may ourselves know how we ought to act. None of us here or with 
you should be hasty, or decide the course to be taken, while under 
excitement. " In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall 
direct thy paths." A good cause is sure to be safe in the hands of 
an all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful Director and Father. Dear 
Sir, please send this to the friends at Boston and Worcester at once ; 
and in the mean time send me on a plain copy of all that F. may 
hereafter write and say. The copy, together with fifteen dollars, 
is received. Direct all communications on outside envelope to 
James M. Bell, Chatham, Canada West ; the inside, sealed, to 
Jason Brown. 

Yours ever. 
(No signature.) 

P. S. You can say with perfect truth to F. that you do not know 
what has become of me ; and you might ask him when he last heard 
from me, and where I was at the time. 

The narration must now go back a few weeks in order 
to take up events as they occurred at the East while Brown 
was making his arrangements for a foray in Virginia, by 
visiting Canada and the West. 

Brown's first request in 1858 was for a fund of a thousand 
dollars only ; with this in hand he promised to take the field 
either in April or May. Mr. Stearns acted as treasurer of 
this fund, and before the 1st of May neai-ly the whole amount 
had been paid in or subscribed, — Stearns contributing 
three hundred dollars, and the rest of our committee smaller 
sums. It soon appeared, however, that the amount named 
would be too small, and Brown's movements were embar- 
rassed from lack of money before the disclosures of Forbes 
came to his knowledge. I do not find among my papers the 
precise language of Forbes's threats, but the effect of them 
is visible enough in the letters extant. On the 20th of 
April, 1858, I had written thus to Higginson of the secret 
committee : — 

" I have lately had two letters from Mr. Hawkins, who has just 
left Canada for the West, on business connected with his enterprise. 
He has found in Canada several good men for shepherds, and, if not 
embarrassed by want of means, expects to turn his flock loose about 



458 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

the 15th of May. He has received four hundred and ten dollars of 
the five hundred guaranteed hiui in Massachusetts, but wants more ; 
and we inust try to make up to him the other five hundred dollars. 
Part of it is pledged, and the rest ought to be got, though with some 
difficulty. . . . Hawkins's address is ' Jason Brown,' under cover to 
John Jones, Chicago. He has gone West to move his furniture and 
bring on his hands. He has received two hundred and sixty dollars 
from other sources than our friends, and is raising more elsewhere, 
but got little in New York or Philadelphia." 

On the 28th of April Brown was still at Chicago, ignorant 
of Forbes's treachery, and was on his way a day or two later, 
with a dozen or twenty " shepherds," for the " market " at 
Chatham in Canada, where he wrote his Massachusetts 
friends to meet him. But just then came a letter to me 
from Forbes, followed by one to Dr. Howe, threatening to 
make the matter public. On the 2d of May, Dr. Howe, 
Mr. Stearns, and myself met for consultation on the new 
aspect of affairs presented by these letters from Washing- 
ton, where Forbes then was. Parker was also consulted on 
the same day, and I wrote the result (May 5) to Higginson 
as follows : — 

" It looks as if the project must, for the present, be deferred, for I 
find by reading Forbes's ei)istles to the doctor that he knows the de- 
tails of the plan, and even knows (what very few do) that the doctor, 
Mr. Stearns, and myself are informed of it. How he got this knowl- 
edge is a mystery. He demands that Hawkins be dismissed as agent, 
and himself or some other be put in his place, threatening otherwise 
to make the business public. Theodore Parker and G. L. Stearns 
think the plan must be deferred till another year ; the doctor does 
not think so, and I am in doubt, inclining to the opinion of the two 
former." 

On the 7th of May Gerrit Smith wrote me : ^ " It seems 
to me that in these circumstances Brown must go no fur- 
ther, and so I write him. I never was convinced of the 
wisdom of his scheme. But as things now stand, it seems 
to me it would be madness to attempt to execute it. Colonel 
Forbes would make such an attem]it a certain and most dis- 
astrous failure. I write Brown tlrls evening.''^ On the 9th 

1 This letter is now in Colonel Hig|?inson's possession. 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 459 

of May Higginsoa wrote to Parker a brief note from Brat- 
tleboro, protesting against delay. " I regard any postpone- 
ment," he said, " as simply abandoning the project ; for if 
we give it up now, at the command or threat of H. ¥., it 
will be the same next year. The only way is to circumvent 
the man somehow (if he cannot be restrained in his malice). 
When the thing is well started, who cares what he says ? " 
He soon after wrote more fully to Parker, giving many ar- 
guments against delay. Parker replied : " If you knew all 
we do about ' Colonel ' Forbes, you would think differently. 
Can't you see the wretch in New York ? " At the same 
time Dr. Howe wrote to Higginson : " T. P. will tell you 
about matters. They have held a different view from the 
one I have taken, which agrees mainly with yours. I think 
that the would-be traitor is now on the wrong track. I told 
him some truth, which he will think to be false ^ ( for he 

1 Dr. Howe wrote to Forbes as follows : " I said to Senator Sumner that I 
had confidence in the int>grity and ability of Captain Brown ; but it is utterly 
absurd to infer from that any responsibility Ibr his acts. I have confidence 
in the integrity and ability of scores and hundreds of men for whose words 
and acts I am in no wise responsible. I never made myself responsible, as 
a member of the Kansas Committee, or as an individual, neither legally nor 
morally, for any contract between Captain Brown and you. I was an active 
member of the committee from its formation nntil it ceased active opera- 
tions (which was long, long ago), and never heard of any contract with 
you ; and I know that the committee never delegated power to any one to 
bind it by any legal or even moral obligation with you. So the brains are 
out of that allegation, and I will not heed any ghosts of it which you may 
parade before me or the pnblic. Your mistaken notion about my being in 
any way responsible for Captain Brown's actions is the key, I suppose, to 
certain enigmatical allusions in yonr last letter to some projected expedi- 
tion of his ; as thongh I was to be responsible through all time for him ! I 
infer from yonr language that you have obtained (in confidence) some in- 
formation respecting an expedition which you think to be commendable, 
provided you could manage it, but which you will betray and denounce if 
he does not give it up ! You ai-e, sir, the guardian of your own honor ; 
but I trust that for your children's sake, at least, you will never let your 
passion lead you to a course that might make them blush. In order, how- 
ever, to disabuse you of any lingering notion that I, or any of the members 
of the late Kansas Committee (whom I know intimately) have any respon- 
sibility for Captain Brown's actions, I wish to say that the very last com- 
munication I sent to him was in order to signify the earnest wish of certain 
gentlemen, whom you name as his sup^wrters (in your letter and iu the 



460 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

thinks evil), and he will probably be bungling about in the 
dark and hesitating until the period for his doing harm has 
passed. Forbes has disclosed what he knows to Senator 
Seward, or says he has." A few days after this. Dr. Howe 
also admitted that the enterprise must be postponed. I 
was in almost daily consultation with him, and on the 18th 
of May I wrote to Higginson : *' Wilson as well as Hale and 
Seward, and God knows how many more, have heard about 
the plot from Forbes. To go on in the face of this is mere 
madness, and 1 place myself fully on the side of Parker, 
Stearns, and Dr. Howe. Mr. Stearns and the doctor will 
see Hawkins in New York this week, and settle matters 
hnally." 

Following up Parker's hint, but without being able to 
meet Forbes in New York, Higginson wrote to him a letter 
which after a time found him out, and to which Forbes re- 
plied from Philadelphia, June 6, — some days after Brown 
had definitely agreed to the postponement, and had left New 
England for Kansas. The letter was long and rambling, 
and reads more like the epistle of a lunatic than the pro- 
position of a military leader, such as Forbes professed to be. 
He said : — 

" The patent business which called me to Washington detained 
me longer than I anticipated ; besides, certain financial difficulties 
threw obstacles in my way. ... I am little disposed to trust certain 
letters by the United States mail addressed to obnoxious individuals. 
You can get from F. B. Sanboi-n and Dr. S. G. HovA'e a sight of my 
letters to them, unless Dr. H. may have thrown them behind the 
fire, as he said he would do if he did not like their tone, — as if he 

anonymous one), that he should go at on.-e to Kansas and give his aid in 
the coming elections. Whether he will do so or not, we do not know. I 
may, perhaps, save you trouble by declaring that though I am w^illing to 
do my uttermost to ai<l yoiir family, or any distressed family, and though 
I am willing to listen to any supposed claim of yours upon me, or any of 
my friends, I will not read letters couched in such vituperative and ahu.sive 
language as you have hitherto used to Mr. Sanborn and me. I will read 
only far enough to see the spirit of the communication; and if it is similar 
to that of your former letters, I shall put it in the fire, with a real feeling 
of regret at seeing a man of ability and acquirements wilfully injuring 
himself and his family by his own passions." With this plain statement, 
all correspondence with Forbes from Boston closed. 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 461 

thought himself the Pope, or the autocrat of Austria, Japan, or 
China. I have been grossly defrauded in the name of humanity and 
antislavery. ... I have for years labored in the antislavery cause, 
without wanting or thinking of a recompense. Though I have made 
the least possible parade of my work, it has nevertheless not been 
entirely without fruit; the very protest presented to the United States 
Senate and House against the Clayton clause of the organic act, 
which deprived foreigners of the right of voting in Kansas, was 
mainly my doing. ... I consider, therefore, that if my fauuly were 
from any circumstance to be in distress, that distress ought cheer- 
fully and eflectually to be alleviated by the antislavery men of every 
school. . . . Patience and mild measures having failed, I reluctantly 
have recourse to harshness. Let them not flatter themselves that I 
shall eventually become weary and shall drop the subject ; it is as 
yet quite at its beginning. The Massachusetts senators, — Sumner 
and Wilson, — wrote to Boston about it ; but Howe, Lawrence, 
Sanborn, and associates prefer to accumulate injury on injury rather 
than acknowledge their fallibility by redressing a wrong they have 
committed. I am on my way to New Ycirk, but I shall stop in this 
city (Philadelphia) for three days, because I wish to see some anti- 
slavery people here. I had letters to Mr. Miller McKim, but by him 
I was told that I could expect nothing from the Pennsylvania wing 
of the antislaveryites, because my remedy lay in New England, and 
because funds were low and prospects gloomy,'' etc. 

On the 14th of May (the day when Brown's letter last 
cited was written), Mr. Stearns had sent to Brown in Canada 
an important letter, to which he added a second on the loth. 
Here they are : — 

Boston, May 14, 1858. 
Mk. John Brown, Chatham, Canada "West. 

Dear Sir, — Enclosed please find a copy of a letter to Dr. Howe 
from Hon. Henry Wilson. You will recollect that you have the cus- 
tody of the arms alluded to, to be used for the defen(!e of Kansas, 
as agent of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. Li conse- 
quence of the information thus communicated to me, it becomes my 
duty to warn you not to use them for any other purpose, and to hold 
them subject to my order as chairman of snid committee. A member 
of our committee will be at Chatham early in the coming week, to 
confer with, you as to the best mode of disposing of them. 
Truly your friend, 

George L. Stearns, 
CJiairmciM Mass. State Kansas Committee. 



462 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

May 15, 1858. 
Mi;. John Brown, Chatham, Canada West. 

Dear Sir, — I wrote to you yesterday iriformiDg you that a 
member of the Maasaeliusetts State Kausas Committee would visit 
Chatham, to confer about the delivery of the arms you hold. As I 
can find no one wlio can spare the time, I have to request that you 
will meet me in New York City sometime next week. A letter to 
me, directed to care of John Hopper, 110 Broadway, New York, will 
be in season. Come as early as yt)U can. Our committee will pay 
your expenses. Truly yours, 

George L. Stearns, 
Chairman Mass. Utate Kansas Committee. 

Dr. Howe will go on as soon as he knows you are in New York. 

On or before the 20tli of May Mr. Stearns met Brown in 
Nevf York by appointment, and wrote to Higginson from 
there that " we are all agreed " about the recall of these 
arms from Virginia, ''for reasons that cannot be written." 
Previously, on the 12th and loth of May, Dr. Howe had re- 
plied to Senator Wilson's letter of INIay 9 as follows : — 

Boston, May 12, 1858. 
Dear Sir, — I have just received your letter of the 9th. I under- 
stand perfectly your meaning. No countenance has been given to 
Brown for any operations outside of Kansas hij the Kansas Commit- 
tee. I had occasion, a few days ago, to send liim an earnest message 
from some of his friends here, urging him to go at once to Kansas 
and take part in the coming election, and throw the weight of his 
influence on the side of the right. There is in Washington a disap- 
pointed and malicious man, working with all the activity which hate 
and revenge can inspire, to harm Brown, and to cast odium upon the 
friends of Kansas in ]\Iassachusctts. You probably know him. He 
has been to Mr. Seward. Mr. Hale, also, can tell you something 
about him. God speed the right ! 

May 15, 1858. 

When I last wrote to you, I was not aware fully of the true state 
of the case with regard to certain arms belonging to tlie late Kansas 
Committee. Prompt measures have been taken, and will be resolutely 
fulloweil up, to prevent any such monstrous perversion of a trust as 
would be tlie application of means raised for the defence of Kansas 
to a purpose wliich the subscribers of the fund would disapprove and 
vehemently condenm. Faithfully yours, 

S. G. Howe. 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 463 

Dr. Howe, with his usual ardor to act, had a*t first agreed 
with Brown and with Higginson ; but, as these letters show, 
he was moved by the awkward complication which Brown's 
possession of these Kansas rifles created to acquiesce in a 
different view, and favor postponement of the attack, — as 
Parker, Stearns, and Sanborn did. For since these rifles, 
wiiich had been purchased by the Massachusetts Kansas Com- 
mittee and intrusted to Brown, were still, so far as Senator 
Wilson and the public knew, the property of that committee 
(though really, as has been explained, the personal property 
of Mr. Stearns), it would expose the Kansas Committee, who 
were ignorant of Brown's later plans, to suspicions of bad 
faith if those arms were used by him in any expedition to 
Virginia. Brown saw that nothing further could then be 
done, and yielded, though with regret, to the postponement. 

When, about Ma;^ 20, Mr. Stearns met Brown in New 
York, it was arranged that hereafter the custody of the 
Kansas rifles should be in Brown's hands as the agent, not 
of this committee, but of Mr. Stearns alone. It so hap- 
pened that Gerrit Smith, who seldom visited Boston, was 
coming there late in May, to deliver an address before the 
Peace Society at its anniversary. He arrived and took 
rooms at the Revere House, where, on the 24th of May, 
1858, the secret committee (organized in March, and con- 
sisting of Smith, Parker, Howe, Higginson, Stearns, and 
Sanborn) held a meeting to consider the situation. It had 
already been decided to postpone the attack, and the arms 
had been placed under a temporary interdict, so that they 
could only be used, for the present, in Kansas. The ques- 
tions remaining were whether Brown should be required to 
go to Kansas at once, and what amount of money should be 
raised for him in future. Of the six members of the com- 
mittee only one (Higginson) was absent, and as this was 
the only occasion when Smith acted personally witL his 
associates, who met in his chamber at the Revere House, 
he was made chairman of the meeting. It was unanimously 
resolved that Brown ought to go to Kansas at once. 

As soon as possible after this, Brown visited Boston 
(May 31), and while there held a conversation with Hig- 
ginson, who made a record of it at the time, — saying that 



464 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858- 

Brown was full of regret at the decision of the Revere 
House council to postpone the attack till the winter or 
spring of 1859, when the secret committee would raise for 
Brown two or three thousand dollars ; " he meantime to 
blind Forbes by going to Kansas, and to transfer the prop- 
erty so as to relieve the Kansas Committee of responsibil- 
ity, and they in future not to know his plans. On probing 
Brown," Higginson goes on, " I found that he . . . consid- 
ered delay very discouraging to his thirteen men, and to 
those in Canada. Impossible to begin in the autumn ; and 
he would not lose a day [he finally said] if he had three 
hundred dollars ; it would not cost twenty -live dollars apiece 
to get his men from Ohio, and that was all he needed. The 
knowledge that Forbes could give of his plan would be 
injurious, for he wished his oppoi.ents to underrate him; 
but still . . . the increased terror produced would perhaps 
counterbalance this, and it would not make much difference. 
If he had the means he would not lose a day." He com- 
plained that some of his Eastern friends were not men of 
action ; that they were intimidated by Wilson's letter, and 
magnitied the obstacles. Still, it was essential that they 
should not think him reckless, he said ; " and as they held 
the purse, he was powerless without them, having spent 
nearly everything received this campaign, on account of 
delay, — a month at Chatham, etc." Higginson notes down 
a few days later that Dr.Howe told him Brown left Boston, 
June 3, with five hundred dollars in gold, and liberty to 
retain all the arms, and that " he went off in good spirits." 
He visited ISTorth Elba, Ohio, and Iowa, on his way to Kan- 
sas, and finally reached Lawrence, June 25, 1858.^ 

' The relation of the Kansas Committee of Massachusetts to the rifles they 
h;id bought was one thing ; that of Mr. Stearns, chairman of that commit- 
tee, to these arms was quite another thing in 1858. He had then viitually 
bought back the two liundred rilies from the committee, whicli at this time, 
though never formally dissolved, and still continuing at intervals to pass 
votes and write letters in its executi/e committee, had long been jiracti- 
eally defunct, for the very good reason that its funds were exhausted and 
there was little expectation of raising more. It had supplied the starving 
people of Kansas with wheat and clothing in 1857; and in order to do this 
had advanced money far beyond the amount raised in that year. I remem- 
ber this with some distinctness, because I had mvself advanced two or three 



I 



1858.] THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 465 

It is still a little difficult to explain this transaction con- 
cerning the arms without leaving a suspicion that there was 
somewhere a breach of trust ; but it will be seen that Mr. 
Stearns, and those of his colleagues who acted with him, 
although they could not in honor disclose what Brown had 
imparted to them, took pains to free their uninformed asso- 

hundred dollars at that time ; but the principal advances were made by 
our chairman, Mr. Stearns, whose liberality where his heart was interested 
knew no bounds. At the time, therefore, when his Massachusetts friends 
first heard of the Virginia plans of Brown, and gave them their reluctant 
approval, as has been inentioned, the rifles in Brown's possession, though 
nominally belonging to the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, were pleilged 
to Mr. Stearns, along with the other property, for the reimbuisement of 
his advances. I have forgotten how many thousand dollars he paid in this 
way, but it was so many that the value of the arms was not enough to re- 
imburse him; and it was agreed that he should not only have these, but 
should also be at liberty to reimburse himself out of the avails of promis- 
sory notes given by the Kansas farmers in payment for the wheat and other 
supplies furnished to them in 1857. At the time these notes were given it 
was hoped that most of them would be paid, and some of them were ; but 
I fancy very little of the money ever came into the hands of Mr. Stearns. 
Some of it was paid to John Brown, as the agent of the committee, in the 
summer and autumn of 1858, by the agents of Mr. Whitman, in whose 
hands most of the notes were fiist placed. I have before me, in Brown's 
handwriting, an "account of money, etc., collected of E. B. Whitman's 
agents on National Kansas Committee account," in which something less 
than two hundred dollars, mostly in small sums, is set down as received 
from S. L. Adair, William Partridge, William Hutchinson, and other 
Kansas residents, between Aug. 21, 1858, and Jan. 20, 1859. Mr. Whit- 
man acted as agent both for the National Committee and for the Mas- 
sachusetts Committee ; and the business had become so complicated in 
one way and another that Avhen Brown levied upon the agents for 
moneys claimed by him under votes of the committees, it excited a lively 
dispute in Kansas. The Massachusetts Committee, however, stood firmly 
by Brown, even after its three active members (Stearns, Howe, and San- 
born ) were apprised of his "Virginia plans, — as they were before he began 
to collect money on their notes in 1858. In reality everything that the 
committee had done was completely regular, and appropriate to the exi- 
gency of 1856-57. They had collected much money, had expended it 
judiciously, and had allowed a generous individual, their chairman, to 
place in their hands more money, for which he was willing to wait without 
payment until the property of the committee could be turned into cash ; 
then, to give him all the security in its power, the committee had made 
over this property to him, with no restriction as to what he should do with 
it ; and Mr. Stearns had chosen to give it to Brown. 

30 



466 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

ciates of the old Kansas Committee from all reproach of hav- 
ing aided Brown in his Virginia campaign. They were 
themselves indifferent to this reproach ; but they could not 
bear to be charged with diverting other people's money into 
his hands. The public had not been notified in 1857 that the 
Kansas Committee had overdrawn its account on Dr. Howe, 
Mr. Stearns etc. ; and that the arms had been pledged to 
the chairman, to meet this overdraft, long before any of 
us knew aught of Brown's Virginia scheme. When we did 
know this, it was too late to inform the public, except 
in the m'anner undertaken by Dr. Howe in his letters to 
Senator Wilson. As soon as possible after Brown had con- 
sented to the alternative of going to Kansas in the summer 
of 1858, the business of the Kansas Committee was put in 
such shape that its responsibility for the arms in Brown's 
possession should no longer fetter his friends in aiding his 
main design. 

Moreover, it was agreed that Brown should not inform 
them of his plans in detail, nor burden them with knowl- 
edge that would be to them both needless awd inconvenient. 
They were willing to trust him with their money, and did not 
want him to report progress except by action. This was the 
general sentiment of the six persons who formed the secret 
committee of 1858-59, — Gerrit Smith, Theodore Parker, 
Dr. Howe, Mr. Stearns, Wentworth Higginson, and myself, 
— and it was thus pithily expressed by Mr. Smith, wlieu I 
wrote to him six weeks after Brown had left Boston : — 

Petekboro', July 26, IS.nS. 
Mil. F. B. Sanborn. 

My dear Sir, — I have your letter of the 23(1 instant. I liave 
great faith in the wisdom, integrity, and bravery of Captain lirowii. 
For several years I have frequently given him money toward sus- 
taining him in his contests with tlie slave-power. Whenever he 
shall embark in another of these contests I shall again stand ready 
to help him; and T will begin with giving him a hundred dollars. I 
do not wish to know Captain Brown's plans; I hope he will keep 
them to himself. Can you not visit us this summer? We shall be 
very glad to see you. 

With great regard, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 









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1859.1 



THE PLANS DISCLOSED. 46i 



Thus matters stood fifteen months before the foray at 
Harper's Ferry, so far as Brown's last committee were con- 
cerned. His own movements in Canada and Kansas will 
soon be related ; but I may here continue the record of Mr. 
Smith's hospitality toward the old hero. Early in the spring 
of 1859, Brown again directed his steps to Peterboro', where 
he arrived with a single follower (Jerry Anderson), April 
11, 1859. My classmate Morton was still residing in Mr. 
Smith's family, and wrote me as follows at the dates 

named : — 

Wednesday Evening, April 13, 1859. 

You must hear of Brown's meeting this afternoon, — few in num- 
bers, but tlie most interesting I perhaps ever saw. Mr. Smith spoke 
well ; G. W. Putnam read a spirited poem ; and Brown was exceed- 
ingly interesting, and once or twice so eloquent that Mr. Smith and 
some others wept. Some cue asked him if he had not better apply 
himself in another direction, and reminded him of his imminent peril, 
and that his life could not be spared. His replies were swift and 
most impressively tremendous. A paper was handed about, Avith 
the name of Mr. Smith for four hundred dollars, to which others 
added. Mr. Smith, in the most eliKjuent speech I ever heard from 
him, said : " If I were asked to point out — I will say it in his pres- 
ence — to point out the man in all this world I think most truly a 
Christian, I would point to John Brown." I was once doubtful in 
my own mind as to Captain Brown's course. I now approve it 
heartily, having given my mind to it more of late.^ 

. April 18. 
Brown left on Thursday the 14th, and was to be at North Elba 
to-morrow the 19th. Tlience he goes *' in a few days " to you. [He 
actually reached my house in Concord, Saturday, May 7, and spent 
half his last birthday with me.] He says he must not be trifled with, 
and shall hold Boston and New Haven to their word. New Haven 
advises him to forfeit five hundred dollars he has paid on a certain 

1 When I fir.st met Brown at Peterboro', in 1858, Morton plaA^ed some 
fine music to us in the parlor, — among other things Schubert's " Serenade," 
then a favorite piece, — and the old Puritan, who loved music and sang a 
good part himself, sat weeping at the air. 

•'Northward he turneth through a little door. 

And scarce three steps ere music's golden tongue 
Flattered to tears this aged nian and poor. 
But, no ; already had his death-bell rung ; 
The .joys of all his life were said and sung. " 



468 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

contract, and drop it. He will not. From here he went in good 
spirits, and appeared better than ever to us, barring an affection of 
the right side of his head. I hope he will meet hearty encourage- 
ment elsewhere. Mr. Smith gave him four hundred dt)llars, I twenty- 
five, aud we took some ten dollars at the little meeting. . . . " L'ex- 
perience demontre, avec toute I'evidence possible, que c'est la societe 
que prepare le crime, et que le coupable n'est que I'instrumeut que 
rexec'Ute." Do you believe Que'elet i 

June 1. 

Mr. Smith has lately writtei >to John Brown at New York to find 
what he needed, meauiug to supply it. He now sends to him ac- 
cording to your enclosed address. 1 suppose you know the place 
where this matter is to be adjudicated. Harriet Tubman suggested 
the 4th of July as a g(.)od time to " raise the mill." 

June 30. 

News from Andover, Ohio, a week or more since, from our friend. 
He had received two hundred dollars more from here,^ was full of 
cheer, and arranging his wool business; but I do not look for a 
result so soon as many do. 

This message from Browni, about June 20, 1859, shows 
that he was already mustering his men and moving his arms 
toward Virginia ; and it was about the 4th of July, as Har- 
riet Tubman the African Sibyl had suggested, that Brown 
first showed himself in the counties of Washington and 
Jefferson, on opposite sides of the lordly Potomac. Before 
relating his adventures there, I must pause to recite his last 
Kansas episode. 

1 That is, from Gerrit Smith. 



1858. 



THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 469 



CHAPTER XIII. 
FROM CANADA, THROUGH KANSAS, TO CANADA. 

TT is now a humiliating thought that in 1858-59 Canada 
^ was the only safe refuge of the American fugitive slave. 
That simple hero, whose guide was the North Star, and to 
whom the roar of Niagara meant freedom, used to call his 
resort to British protection "shaking the paw of the Lion." 
" Slaves could not breathe in England " a hundred years 
ago ; but the atmosphere of Canada was as wholesome to 
the freedmen in Judge Taney's time as that of England was 
in Lord Mansfield's. When John Brown wished to organize 
quietly his foray against Virginian slavery, he withdrew to 
Chatham, in Canada, where, in May, 1858, he held his little 
convention among the fugitives, and promulgated his " Pro- 
visional Constitution." Here is the beginning of the in- 
strument, as it came from the mind and the pen of John 
Brown : — 

PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION ^ AND ORDINANCES FOR THE 
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Preamble. 

WJiereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United 
States, is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and un- 
justifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another portion — 

^ On the 10th of May, 1858, when the Chatham convention adjourned, 
it was voted "that John Brown (commander-in-chief), J. H. Kagi (secre- 
tary of war), Richard Realf (secretary of state), <'harles P. Tidd, E. Whip- 
ple (A. D. Stephens), C. W. Moffat, John E. Cook, Owen Brown, Stewart 
Taylor, Osborne P. Anderson,. A. M. EJlswortli, Richard llkhardson, W. 
H. Leeman, and John Lawrence be, and hereby are, "appointed a committee 
to whom is delegated the power of the convention to fill by election all the 
offices specially named in the Provisional Constitution which may be va- 
cant after the adjournment of this convention." Those in italics were 
eolored men. 



470 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. |1S58 

the only conditions of which ai'e perpetual iniprisfinment and hope- 
less servitude or absolute extermination — in utter disregard and 
violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our 
Declaration of Independence : 

Therefore, We, citizens of the United States, and the oppressed 
people who by a recent decision of the Supreme Court are declared 
to have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, together 
with all other people degraded by the laws thereof, do, for the time 
being, ordain and establisli for ourselves the following Provisional 
Constitution and Ordinances, the better to protect our persons, prop- 
erty, lives, and liberties, and to govern our actions : 

Qualifications for Member ship. 

Art. I. All persons of mature age, whether proscribed, oppressed, 
and enslaved citizens, or of the proscribed and oppressed races of the 
United States, who shall agree to sustain and enforce the Provisional 
Constitution and Ordinances of this organization, together with all 
minor chiUlreu of such persons, shall be held to be fully entitled to 
protection under the same. 

This whole constitution, much ridiculed in 1859, will 
bear a careful examination, and will be found well suited to 
its purpose, — the government of a territory in revolt, of 
which the chief occupants should be escaped slaves. Mr. 
Bagehot once said that " the men of Massachusetts could 
work any constitution ; " and so perhaps Brown and his 
men might have done. 

Upon the intelligence received from Boston, in May, 
1858, the little party of liberators in Canada separated, 
some going one way, some another. Richard Realf wrote 
to Brown, May 31, from Cleveland, Ohio : — 

" I learn from George Gill that a certain Mr. Warner, living at 
Milan, has l)Pon told that a quantity of material was located in a 
certain county^ (name correctly given), and that this Warner has 

1 At this time the arms of Brown were stored at Lindenville, Ohio, in 
charge of Mr. E. A. Fobes, to whom Biown had written from Chatham, 
May 11, saying : "The conduct of Colonel Forbes has been so strange of 
late as to render it important that he get no clew to where the arms are 
stored, or other articles, and tliat he slioiihl know nothing of my where- 
abouts. You will gi-eatly oblige me and many other friends of freedom by 



1858.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 471 

mentioned it to another man. All these are, Gill says, tnie men ; 
but I do not like the idea any more for that. Nor am I better pleased 
to learn from tlie same source that a certain Mr. Reynolds (c<d()red), 
who attended our convention, has disclosed its objects to tlie members 
of a secret society (colored) called ' The American Mysteries,' or 
some other confounded humbug. I suppose it is likely that these 
people are good men enough ; but to make a sort of wholesale di vulge- 
ment of matters at hazard is too steep even for me, who am not by any 
means over-cautious. Co(jk also, I learn, conducted himself here in a 
manner well calculated to arouse suspicion. According to Parsons, 
he stated in his boarding-house that he was here on a secret expedi- 
tion, and that the rest of the company were under his orders. He 
made a most ostentatious display of his equipments ; was careful to let 
it be known that he had been in Kansas; stated, among other recitals 
of impossible achievements, that he had killed five men ; and, in short, 
drew largely on his imagination in order to render himself conspicu- 
ous. He found out and called upon a lady friend whom he knew in 
Connecticut, talked a great deal too much to her ; and wound up his 
performances by proposing to Parsons, Gill, and Taylor a trip to the 
same locality on the same errand in the event of postponement.^ He 
has taken his tools with him. It pains me to be obliged to say these 
things of one whom I have known so long ; but T should be lacking 
in common honesty if 1 withheld them from you, — and especially 
now, when we have to tread with double care. I am not at all sure 
but that, in the event of deferment, our chief danger will accrue from 
him and his dreadful affliction of the cacoethes loquendi, which, ren- 
dered into English, means ' rage for talking,' or ' tongue malady.' " 

At the time E-ealf wrote, Brown was in Boston ; June 9 
he was at Xorth Elba; a few days later, at West Andover, 
Ohio ; June 22, at Chicago ; and on Sunday, June 25, he 
reached Lawrence, in Kansas ; where James Redi)ath met 
him in company with Richard Hinton. Eedpath says : — 

'' We were at supper that day at a hotel in Lawrence, when a 
stately old man, with a flowing white beard, entered the room and 
took a seat at the public table. I immediately recognized in the 
stranger John Brown. Yet many persons who had previously known 
him did not penetrate his patriarchal disguise." 

getting all who may know anything about either to observe the utmost 
secrecy about the whole matter." 

1 This trip to Harper's Ferry is perhaps that mentioned in Brown's last 
interriew with Cook, Dee. 2, 1859. 



472 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [185a 

The narrative is continued by Hinton, who says : — 

" On this Sunday I held a conversation with Captain Brown, 
which histed nearly the whole afternoon. The purport of it was, on 
his part, inquiries as to various pu])lic men in the Territory, and the 
condition of political affairs. He was very particular as to the 
movements and character of Captain Montgomery. The massacre 
of the Marais des Cygues was then fi-esh in the minds of the people. 
I remember an expression which he used. Warmly giving utterance 
to my detestation of slavery and its minions, and impatiently wishing 
for some effectual means of injuring it. Captain Brown said to me 
most impressively, ' Young men must learn to wait. Patience is 
the hardest lesson to learn. I have waited for twenty years to 
accomplish my purpose.' He reminded me of a message that I had 
sent him in 1857, and said he hoped I meant what I said, for he 
should ask the fulfilment of that promise, and perhaps very soon ; 
further adding that he wanted to caution me against rash promises. 
Young men were too apt to make them, and should be very careful. 
The promise given was of great importance ; and I must be prepared 
to stand by it, or disavow it now. Kagi, who was present at the 
same time, gave me to understand that their visit to Kansas was 
caused by the betrayal of their plans by Colonel Forbes to the Ad- 
ministration ; and that they wished to give a different impression by 
coming to the West. Both said they intended to stay some time ; 
and that night Captain Brown announced that they shf)uld go to 
southern Kansas in the morning, to see Captain Montgomery and 
visit the Adairs near Osawatomie. 

" I did not see Brown again until September, when I met him at 
Mr. Adair's. Both he and Kagi were sick with the fever and ague, 
and had been for some time. In the interim Brown had been in 
Linn and Bourbon Counties, and other parts of southern Kansas. 
One of his first acts was to negotiate with Snyder the blacksmith, 
upon whose claim the massacre of the Marais des Cygnes occurred, 
for its purchase. This claim is about half a mile from tlie State line, 
— tlie buildings in an admirable position for defence. Brown saw 
both the moral and material advantages of the position, and was de- 
sirous of obtaining possession. Snyder agreed to sell ; but soon 
after, having a better offer, he broke the contract. The Captain had 
in the inter'val, with the assistance of Kagi, Tidd, Stephens, Lee- 
man, and another member of his company, prepared a very strong 
fortification, where they could have successfully resisted a large force. 
In my journey through the border counties I found that a general 
feeling of confidence prevailed among our friends because John 
Brown was near. Over the border the Missouriaus were remarkably 



1858. 



THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 473 



quiet from June until October, in the belief that the old hero was in 
their vicinity. When the farm was abandoned, Brown and Kagi 
came to Mr. Adair's, where I met them. . . . Brown was then more 
nervous and impatient in his manner than I had before observed. 
Captain Montgomery's name was introduced, and Brown was enthu- 
siastic in praise of him, avowing perfect confidence in his integrity 
and purposes. ' Captain Montgomery,' he said, ' is the only soldier 
I have met among the prominent Kansas men. He understands my 
system of warfare exactly. He is a natural chieftain, and knows 
how to lead.' He spoke of General Lane and his recent killing of 
Gains Jenkins ; said he would not say one W(jrd against Lane iu his 
misfortunes, but he told the General himself that he was his own 
worst enemy. Of his own early treatment at the hands of ambitious 
leaders, he said : ' They acted up to their instincts. As politicians 
they thought every man wanted to lead, and therefore supposed I 
might be in the way of their schemes. While they had this feeling, of 
course they opposed me. Committees and councils could not c(nitrol 
my movements, therefore they did not like me. Many men did not like 
the manner in which I ccmducted warfare, and they too opposed me. 
But politicians and leaders soon found that I had different purposes, 
and forgijt their jealousy. They have all been kind to me since.' '' 

Brown preferred Montgomery to the other Kansas lead- 
ers ; and on the 9th of July he wrote to his son John from 
Sugar Mound, in southern Kansas: "I am now writing in 
the log-cabin of the notorious Captain James Montgomery, 
whom I deem a very brave and talented officer, and, what is 
infinitely more, a very intelligent, kind, gentlemanly, and 
most excellent man and lover of freedom." ^ 

Not long after this letter Brown wrote to me from the 
region made famous by the Marais des Cygnes murders, 
where he was then residing under the name of' Captain 
Shubel Morgan, with a small company whom he had en- 
listed according to this compact, which he signed by his 
assumed name : — 

ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT FOR SHUBEL MORGAn's COMPANY. 

We, the undersigned, members of Shubel Morgan's corapany, 
hereby agree to be governed by the following rules : — 

1 James Montgomery, one of the bravest partisans on the Kansas border, 
and during the Civil War colonel of a black regiment in South Carolina. 



474 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

I. A gentlemanly and respectful deportment shall at all times and 
places be maintained towards all persons; and all profane or indecent 
language shall be avoided in all cases. 

IL No intoxicating drinks shall be used as a beverage by any 
member, or be suffered in camp for such purpose. 

III. No member shall leave camp without leave of the com- 
mander. 

IV. All property captured in any manner shall be subjected to an 
equal distribution among the members. 

V. All acts of petty or other thefts shall be promptly and properly 
punished, and restitution made as far as possible. 

VL All members shall, so far as able, contribute equ<ally to all 
necessary labor in or out of camp. 

VII. All prisoners who shall properly demean themselves shall 
be treated with kindness and respect, and shall be punished for 
crime only after trial and conviction, being allowed a hearing in 
defence. 

VIII. Implicit obedience shall be yielded to all proper orders of 
the commander or other superior officers. 

IX. All arms, ammunition, etc., not strictly private property, 
shall ever be held subject to, and delivered up on, the order of the 
commander.^ 

Names. Date, 1858. Names. Date, 1858. 

Shubel Morgan, July 12. E. W. Snyder, July 15. 

C. P. Tidd, " " Elias J. Snyder, '' '' 

J. H. Kagi, " " John H. Snyder, " " 

A. Wattles, " " Adam Bishop, " " 

Saml. Stevenson, " " Wm. Hairgrove, " " 

J. Montgomery, '* " John Mikel, " " 

T.Homyer [Wiener ?], " " Wm. Partridge, " " 

Simon Snyder, " 14. 

John Brown on Guard at Fort Snyder. 

Missouri Line (on Kansas sidk), July 20, 1858. 

F. B. Sanborn, Esq., and Friends at Boston and Worces- 
ter, — I am here with about ten of my men, located on the same 
quarter-section where the terrible murders of the 19th of May were 
pommitted, called the ITamiltcm or trading-post murders. Deserted 
farms and dwellings lie in all directions for some miles along the 

1 Thi.s paper is in Kagi's handwriting, and contain.s the signature of 
Montgomery as a private. 



1858. 



THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 475 



line, and the remainiug inhabitants watch every appearance of per- 
sons moving about, with anxious jealousy and vigilance. Four of 
the persons wounded or attacked on that occasion are staying with 
ine. The blacksmith Snyder, who fought the murderers, with his 
brother and son, are of the number. Old Mr. Hairgrove, who was 
terribly wounded at the same time, is another. The blacksmith re- 
turned here with me, and intends to bring back his family on to his 
claim within two or three days. A constant fear of new troubles 
seems to prevail on both sides of the line, and on both sides are com- 
panies of armed men. Any little affiiir may open the quarrel afresh. 
Two murders and cases of robbery are reported of late. I have also 
a man with me who tied from his family and farm in Missouri but a 
day or two since, his life being threatened on account of being ac- 
cused of informing Kansas men of the whereabouts of one of the 
murderers, who was lately taken and brought to this side. I have 
concealed the fact of my presence pretty much, lest it should tend to 
create excitement ; but it is getting leaked out, and wall soon be 
known to all. As I am not here to seek or secure revenge, I do not 
mean to be the first to reopen the quarrel. How soon it may be 
raised against me I cannot say ; nor am I over anxious. A portion 
of my men are in other neighborhoods. We shall soon be in great 
want of a small amount in a draft or drafts on New York, to feed us. 
We cannot work for wages, and provisions are not easily obtained 
on the frontier. 

1 cann(jt refrain fi-om quoting, or rather referring to, a notice of 
the terrible affair before alluded to, in an account found in the " New 
York Tribune" of May 31, dated at Westport, May 21. The writer 
says: " From one of the prisoners it was ascertained that a number 
of persons were stationed at Snyder's, a short distance from the Post, 
a house built in the gorge of two mounds, and flanked by rock-walls, 
— a fit place for robbers and murderers." At a spring in a rocky 
ravine stands a very small open blacksmith's-shop, made of thin slabs 
from a saw-mill. This is the only building that has ever been known 
to stand there, and in that article is called a " fortification." It is to- 
day, just as it was on the 19th of May, — a little pent-up shop, con- 
taining Snyder's tools (what have not been carried ofi") all covered 
with rust, — and had never been thought of as a " fortification " be- 
fore the poor man attempted in it his own and his brother's and son's 
defence. I give this as an illustration of the truthfulness of that 
whole account. It should be left to stand while it may last, and 
should be known hereafter as Fort Snyder. 

I may continue here for some time. Mr. Russell and other friends 
at New Haven assured me before I left, that if tlie Lecompton abom- 
ination should pass through Congress something could be done there 



476 LIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

to relieve me from a difficulty I am in, and which they understand. 
Will not some of my Boston friends '* stir up their minds" in the 
matter? 1 do believe they would be listened to.^ 

You may use this as you think best. Please let friends in New 
York and at North Elba'^ hear from me. I am not very stout ; have 
much to think of and to do, and have but little time or chance for 
writing. The weather, of late, has been very hot. I will write you 
all when I can. 

I believe all honest, sensible Free-State men in Kansas consider 
Getjrge Washington Brown's " Herald of Freedom" one of the most 
mischievous, traitorous publications in the whole country. 

July 23. Since the previous date another Free-State Missourian 
has been over to see us, who reports great excitement on the other 
side of the line, and that the house of Mr. Bishop (the man who fled 
to us) was beset during the night after he left, but on finding he was 
not there they left. Yesterday a i)roslavery man from West Point, 
Missouri, came over, professing that he wanted to buy Bishop's farm. 
1 think he was a spy. He reported all quiet on the other side. At 
present, along this part of the line, the Free-State men may be said, 
in sf>me sense, to " possess the field ; " but we deem it wise to " be 
on the alert." Whether Missouri people are more excited through 
fear than otherwise, I am not yet prepared to judge. The black- 
smith (Suyder) has got his family back ; also some others have re- 
turned, and a few new settlers are coming in. Those who tied or 
were driven off will pretty much lose the season. Since we came 
here about twenty- five or tliirty of Governor Denver's men have 
moved a little nearer to the line, I believe. 

August G. Have been down with the ague since last date, and 
had no safe way of getting t)ff my letter. I had lain every night 
without shelter, suffering from cold rains and lieavy dews, together 
with the oppressive heat of the days. A few days since, Governor 
Denver's officer then in command bravely moved his men on to the 
line, and on the next adjoining claim with us. Several of them im- 
mediately sought opportunity to tender their service to me secretly. 
I however advised them to remain where they were. Soon after I 

1 The allusion here is to Brown's contract with Charles Blair, who was 
to make the thousanil pikes. Brown had not been able, for lack of money, 
to complete the payment, and was afraid his contract would be forfeited, 
and the money paid would be lost. He therefore communicated the facts 
to Mr. Russell, who was then the head of a military school at New Haven, 
and had some assurance from him of money to be raised in Connecticut to 
meet this contract. 

2 Gerrit Smith, and his own family. 



1858.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 477 

came on the line my right name was reported ; but the majority did 
not credit the report. 

I am getting better. You will know the true result of the election 
of the 2d iust. much sooner than I shall, probably. I am in no place 
for correct genei'al information. jMay God bless you all ! 
Your friend, 

John Brown. 

When recovering from fever he wrote this shorter letter : 

OsAWATOMiE, Kansas, Sept. 10, 1858. 

Dear Friend, and other Friends, — Your kind and very 
welcome letter of the 11th July was received a long time since, 
but I was sick at the time, and have been ever since until now ; so 
that I did not even answer the letters of my own family, or any one 
else, before yesterday, when I began to try. I am very weak yet, 
but gaining well. AH seems quiet now. I have been down about 
six weeks. As things now look I would say that if you had not 
already sent forward those little articles,^ do not do it. Beft)re I was 
taken sick there seemed to be €very prospect of some business very 
soon ; and there is some now that requires doing ; but, under alLthe 
circumstances, I think not best to send them. 

I have heard nothing direct from Forbes for months, but expect to 
■when I get to Lawrence. I have but fourteen regularly employed 
hands, the most of whom are now at common work, and some are 
sick. Much sickness prevails. How we travel may not be best to 
write. I have often met the " notorious " Montgomery, and think 
very favorably of him. 

It now looks as though but little business can be accomplished 
until we get our mill into operation. I am most anxious about that, 
and want you to name the earliest date possible, as near as you can 
learn, when you can have your matters gathered up. Do let me hear 
from you on this point (as soon as consistent), so that I may have 
some idea how to arrange my business. Dear friends, do be in earn- 
est : the harvest we shall reap, if we are only up and doing. 

Sept. 13, 1858. 

Yours of the 25th August, containing draft of Mr. S. for fifty dol- 
lars is received. I am most grateful for it, and to you for your kind 

1 The whistles, etc., mentioned in this note, sent to me from Brooklyn 
in March, 1858. " Please get for me (if yoii can) a quantity of whistles 
such as are used by the boatswain on ships of war. They will be of great 
service. Every ten men ought to have one at least. Also some little 
articles as marks of distinction, which I mentioned to you." 



478 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

letter. This would have been sooner inailed but for want of stamps 
and envelopes. I am gaining slowly, but hope to be on my legs 
soon. Have no further news. 

Mailed, September 15. Still weak. 

Your friend. 

To his Family. 

OsAWATOMiE, Kansas, Sopt. 9, 1858. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — I received Henry's letter 
of the 21st July a long time ago, but was too sick to answer it at 
the time, and have been ever since till now. I am still very weak, 
but gaining pretty well. I was never any more sick. I left the 
Missouri line about six weeks since ; soon after, T was taken down. 
Things are now very quiet, so far as I know. What course I shall 
next take, I cannot tell, till I have more strength. I have learned 
witli pain that the flour did not go on, and shall try to send you some 
money. instead of it, so that Mr. Allen may he well paid for the bar- 
rel he lent. I can write you no more now, but I want to know how 
you all get along. Enclose everything to Augustus Wattles, Moneka, 
Linn County, Kansas, iu sealed envelope, with my name (mly on it. 

God bless you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

Osawatomie, Kansas, Sept. 13, 1858. 

*Dear Wife, — Your letter of the 25th August I was most glad 
to get, notwithstanding it told me of your trials ; and T would be 
thankful that the same hand that brought me your letter brought me 
another, supplying me with the means of sending you st)me relief. I 
hope you will all learn to put your trust in God, and not become dis- 
couraged when you meet with poor success and with losses. I wrote 
you two or three days ago, telling you how I had been sick, but was 
getting better. I am still very weak, and write with great labor. T 
enclose draft for fifty dollars, payable to Watson. I want Mr. Allen 
paid out of it, to his full satisfaction, for the barrel of flour lent, as a 
first thing, and the balance used to supply substantial comforts for 
the family, or to pay any little debts. I shall Jiave the means, after a 
while, of paying for another yoke of oxen, and I hope to have it soon; 
but of that I cannot be certain. It would be well to make consider- 
able inquiry for a good, youngish yoke, without faults, and also to 
find where you can get them mt>st reasonably for the money. Do 
not, any of you, go iu debt for a team. You may, perhaps, hire a 
few days' work of some good team to log with, or of some good man 
to help t<i pile logs with<.>ut a team, and I will endeavor to send the pay 



1838.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 479 

on for that soon. Do the best you can, and neither be hasty nor dis- 
couraged. You must acknowledge the receipt of this at once, and 
tell nie all how you get aloug. May God abundantly bless you all ! 

Your aiFectionate husband. 

OsAWATOMiE, Kansas, Oct. 11, 1858. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — I wrote you sometime 
since, enclosing G. Smith's check for iifty d()llars, payable to order 
of Watson. Since then I have no word from any of you, but am in 
hopes of getting sometliing to-morrt>w. I have been very feeble ever 
since, but have improved a good deal now for about one week. I can 
now see no good reason why 1 should not be located nearer home, as 
soon as I can collect the means for defraying expenses. I still intend 
sending you some furtlier help as soon as I can. Will write you how 
to direct to me hereafter. No more now. 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

Moneka, Kansas, Nov. 1, 18f«8. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — I have just written to John 
H. Painter, of Springdale, Cedar County, Iowa, to send you a New 
York draft, payable to Oliver. I have strong hopes of your getting 
one to the amount of his note. At any rate, it is all the means I now 
have of giving you a little further help. Should you get it, you need 
not send him the note, as my letter is good against the note. I would 
be glad to have you pay the taxes, if you can so manage as to do it and 
be comfortable. I shall do all I can to help you, and as fast as I can. 
How soon I shall be able to see you again, I cannot tell, but I still 
live in hopes. I cannot now tell you how to direct to me, but will 
advise you further as soon as I can. Things at this moment look 
quite threatening along the line. I am much better in health tlian I 
was vi^heu I wrote last, but not very strong yet. May God bless you 

all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

Moneka, Kansas, Nov. 1, 1858. 
Dear Friends, — Your letter of the 10th October from Hudson 
was received in good time, but I was not then in a condition to reply 
at once. Things at this moment look rather threatening in this im- 
mediate neighborhood ; but what will come up I cannot say. I am 
obliged to you for your efforts to prevent Watson from going to Cali- 
fornia, and will try to express my gratitude by hinting to you that a 
business and copartnership, such as you allude to, would be very likely 
to require a good deal of the capital (real or fictitious) of others, where- 



480 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1858. 

by yon would be likely to run into debt, and into some other entan- 
glements. Could you not do moderately well by taking a dairy again? 
That business has for the last half century been sulijeet to as few 
fluctuations in Ohio as any other (I think). Beside that, I suppose 
you already understand it, tolerably well at least. I may take wholly 
a wrong view of the subject. My healtli is some improved, but I am 
still weak. Shall write to you where to direct when I know where 
to do so. 

May God bless you all ! Your friend. 

These letters are not signed, because Brown was still a 
proscribed person in Kansas, and was liable at any time to 
engage in new contests which might lead to his arrest by 
the Democratic governor or the Federal troops. At the 
date of the last letter, Governor Denver, who had succeeded 
Walker and Stanton, had resigned, and there was a short 
interregnum. Captain Montgomery, with an armed force 
much larger than any that Brown had commanded, for 
some months patrolled southern Kansas, and retaliated 
on the Border Ruffians as he saw occasion. Montgomery 
was Brown's friend, and had carried Brown's opinions 
very far. Just before April 1, 1858, while pursued by 
United States troops, he turned and put them to flight, 
firing upon them and killing two dragoons, — the first 
and last time that the national soldiers were fired upon by 
the Free-State men in Kansas. These troubles in southern 
Kansas were mainly over when Brown wrote the following 
letter to his family, just a year before his execution : — 

John Brown to his Children in Ohio. 

OsAWATOMiE, Kansas, Dpo. 2, 1858. 
Dear Children, — I have a moment to write you, and I hasten 
to imprrtvc it. My liealth is some improved since I wrote you last, 
but still I get a shake now and then. Otlier friends are middling 
well, I believe. In some of the border counties south, there is the 
worst feeling at this time, which affords but little prospect of quiet. 
Other portions of the Territory are comparatively undisturbed. The 
winter may be supposed to have fairly set in, which may compel 
parties to defer hostilities at least. I want you to write my family to 
inquire particuhirly whether they are so circumstanced as to be able 
to get through the winter without suffering, so that I may hear from 



1859.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 481 

them when I know where to have you direct to me. I have but this 
moment returned from the south, and expect to go back at once. 

Your affectionate friend- 

P. S. Am still preparing for my other journey. Yours. 

P. S. I want you, sortie of you, for the present, to write John, 
saying all about the condition of your different families, and whether 
you are suffering for anything, or are likely to be, and for what, that 
I may get the information by-and-by, through him, when there is 
any chance. You may depend on my doing all in my power to 
make you comfortable. To God and his infinite grace I commend 
you all. 

By his "other journey," Brown meant his Virginia expe- 
dition ; but he was then preparing also for his raid into 
Missouri, to rescue slaves from one or two plantations 
there. He has told the story of this raid in his own 
inimitable manner, summing up in a short letter the his- 
tory of the whole year 1858 in southern Kansas. It was 
addressed to the " New York Tribune," and published both 
there and in the Lawrence " Republican " : — 

JOHN brown's parallels. 

Trading Post, Kansas, January, 1859. 

Gentlemen, — You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allow- 
ing the use of your columns while I brietly state two parallels, in my 
poor way. 

Not one year ago eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood, — 
William Robertson, William Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, 
John Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thomas Stilwell, William Hairgrove, 
Asa Hairgrove, Patrick Ross, and B. L. Reed, — were gathered up 
from their work and their homes by an armed force under one Hamil- 
ton, and without trial or opportunity to speak in their own defence 
were formed into line, and all but one shot, — five killed and five 
wounded. One fell unharmed, pretending to be dead. All were left 
for dead. The only crime charged against tliem was that of being 
Free- State men. Now, I inquire what action has ever, since the 
occurrence in May last, been taken by either the President of the 
United States, the Governor of Missouri, the Governor of Kansas, or 
any of their tools, or by any proslavery or Administration man, to 
ferret out and punish the perpetrators of this crime ? 

81 



482 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Now for the other parallel.^ On Sunday, December 19, a negro 
man called Jim came over to the Osage settlement, from Missouri, 
and stated that he, together with his wife, two children, and another 
negro man, was to be sold within a day or two, and begged for help 
to get away. On Monday (the following) night, two small com- 
panies were made up to go to Missouri and forcibly liberate the five 
slaves, together with other slaves. One of these companies I assumed 
to direct. We proceeded to the place, surrounded the buildings, lib- 
erated the slaves, and also took certain property supposed to belong 
to the estate. We however learned before leaving tliat a portion 
of the articles we had taken belonged to a man living on the plan- 
tation as a tenant, and wlio was supposed to have no interest in the 
estate. We promptly returned to him all we had taken. We then 
went to another plantation, where we found five more slaves, took 
some property and two white men. We moved all slowly away into 
the Territory for some distance, and then sent the white men back, 
telling them to follow us as soon as they chose to do so. The other 
company freed one female slave, took some property, and, as I am 
informed, killed one white man (the master), who fought against 
the liberation. 

Now for a comparison. Eleven persons are forcibly restored to 
their natural and inalienable rights, with but one man killed, and 
all "hell is stirred from beneath." It is currently reported that the 

1 On the back of the original draft of " Old Brown's Parallels," in 
Brown's handwriting, is the following indoisement bv him in pencil of 
stations on the " Underground Railroad" through Kansas : — 
Raynard, Holton. Nemaha City. 

Dr. Fuller, six miles. On River Road, Martin Stowell, Mount Vei- 

Smith, Walnut Creek, fifteen. non. 

Milts and Graham (attorneys), Albany, Dr. Whitenger and Sibley. Nebraska City, 
twenty-five. Mr. Vincent, Ira Reed, Mr. Gardner. 

Besides these entries appear the following : — 

Teamsters, Dr. To cash each, §1.00 S2.00 

Linsley, Dr. at Smith's 1.00 

On the other end of the same page, — 

Cash received by J. Brown on his private account, of J. H. Painter 

on note SlOO 00 

Cash received by J. Brown on his private account, of J H. Painter 

for saddle 10.00 

Ca.'sh received by J. Brown on his private account, of J. H. Painter 

for wagon 38. lo 

"J. Brown paid for company : For 0. Oil], ,$.5.70 ; to Pearce, $39.00 ; 
to Painter, $8.00 ; to Townsend for shoe.s, $1.65 ; to Pearce, .$3.00 ; to Car- 
penter, $10.00 ; to Kagi, .$8.00 ; to Carpenter for making shirts, $2.00." 

These are part of the cost of the journey, no doubt. 



1859.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 483 

Governor of Missouri has made a requisition upon the Governor of 
Kansas for the delivery of all such as vi^ere concerned in the last- 
named " dreadful outrage." Tlie Marshal of Kansas is said to be 
collecting a x>osse of Missouri (not Kansas) men at West Point, in 
Missouri, a little town about ten miles distant, to " enforce the laws." 
All proslavery, conservative, Free-State, and dough-face men and 
Administration tools are filled with holy horror. 

Consider the two cases, and the action of the Administration party. 
Respectfully yours, 

John Brown. 

When Brown was about to set forth from Osawatomie 
with his freedmeu, Gerrit Smith, who had heard of his foray 
in Missouri, and rejoiced at it, sent me this letter : — 

Peterboro', Jan. 22, 1859. 

My dear Sir, — I have yours of the 19th. I am happy to learn 
that the Underground Railroad is so prosperous in Kansas. I cannot 
help it now, in the midst of the numberless calls upon me. But I 
send you twenty-five dollars, which I wish you to send to our noble 
friend John Brown. Perhaps you can get some other contributions 
to send along with it. He is doubtless in great need of all he can 
get. The topography of Missouri is unfavorable. Would tJiat a 
spur of the Alleghany extended from the east to the west borders of 
the State! ]Mr. Morton has not yet returned. We hope he may 
come to-night. In haste, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 

p. S. Dear Theodore Parker ! May Heaven preserve him to us ! 

It was not far from January 20 when Brown started 
northwal-d with his freedmen from the neighborhood of the 
Pottawatomie, where he had sheltered them. The follow- 
ing letter was received by Brown while tarrying a day at 
Major J. B. Abbott's house on the "Wakarusa, near Lawrence, 
with the eleven fugitives, — the same brave Abbott who 
rescued Branson three years before. It was written in reply 
to one sent from Brown by messenger to Judge Conway ; 
upon the back of it is a pencil memorandum in the hand- 
writing of Brown, apparently giving the names of safe 
stopping-places on the route northward, as follows : " Sheri- 
dan's, Hill, Holton, Fuller's, Smith's, Plymouth, Indians, 
Little Nemeha, Dr. Blanchard's, Tabor." 



484 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Judge Conway to John Brown. 

Lawrence, K. T., Jan. 23, 1859. 
Dear Sir, — I have been able to see Whitman but once since I 
got your previous letter, and then he promised to come and see me 
about it ; but he has not done so. I am of opinion that you will not 
be able to get any funds from him. He expressed himself to me 
since his return from the East as dissatisfied at your proceedings in 
Lawrence when you were here before. He has always complaints 
to make about his pecuniary sufferings in connection with the Na- 
tional Kansas Committee. Still, it may be as well for you to look 
after liiui at this time. Anything I can do for you I will do ; but I 
am extremely pinched for money, and am unable to do anything in 
that way. If, however, you can suggest anything within my power 
by which I may aid you, I am at your service. You know Mr. 
Whitman is living out of town. He does not come in very often. I 
shall keep '^ entirely dark," of course. 

Very truly your friend, M. F. Conway. 

The retreat from southern Kansas with his freedmen, 
and particularly the first stage of his journey from Osawa- 
tomie to Lawrence, was one of the boldest adventures of 
Brown. With a price on his head, with but one white 
.companion, himself an outlaw, with twelve fugitives who 
had been advertised the world over, and wath their prop- 
erty loaded into an odd-looking wagon and drawn by the 
cattle taken from the slave-owner in Missouri, Brown pushed 
forward, in the dead of winter, regardless of warnings and 
threats, but relying on the mercy of God and on his own 
stout heart. His next and most dangerous stage was from 
Holton in Jackson County, thirty miles north of Topeka, 
to the Nebraska border. At Holton he occupied the cabin 
of Albert Fuller, and went forth from there with his Topeka 
reinforcements, to win " the battle of the spurs." It was 
at this encounter that he made that capture of his pursuers 
concerning which Brown's biographers have romanced a lit- 
tle, saying, among other things, that he forced his prisoners 
to pray or be shot. The truth of that matter is better nar- 
rated thus : — 

" One of the party captured was Dr. Hereford, a young physician 
from Atchison, — a wild, rattling, devil-may-care kind of fellow, 



1859.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 485 

always ready for au adventure, but who really had nothing very bad 
in his composition. Brown took him under his especial care. One 
evening he called upon the doctor to offer prayer. > 

" ' By God ! ' said the doctor, ' I can't pray.' 

" ' Did your mother never teach you to pray ? ' 

" ' Oh, yes; but that was a long thne ago.' 

" ' But you still remember the prayer she taught you,' said 
Brown. 

" ' Yes.' 

" ' Well, for lack of a better one, say that.' And the doctor re- 
peated before black and white comrades of the camp that night the 
rhyme, ' Now I lay me down to sleep,' etc., to the amusement of his 
fellow-prisoners and (jthers. 

" On his return home he related this, and said with an oath that 
John Brown was the best man he had ever met, and knew more 
about religion than any man. When asked whether Brown had 
ever treated them badly, or used hai'sli language while they were 
with him, he said, 'No/ — that they were all treated like gentlemen ; 
had the same fare as the others ; but it did go a little against the 
grain to eat with and be guarded by * damned niggers.' " ^ 

Brown appears to have made no written report of his 
retreat with the freedmen through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, 
Illinois, and Michigan to Canada ; but I find copious accounts 
of it by others. He reached Lawrence January 24, 1859, 
and travelled northward slowly. About thirty miles from 
Topeka he found shelter in a vacant log-cabin, belonging to 
Dr. Fuller. 

"Our party," says a comrade, ''consisted only of the captain, 
myself, and a man known by the name of Whipple in Kansas, but 
afterward as Stephens at Harper's Ferry. Kagi and Tidd had stayed 
at Topeka to procure provisions, and our teamster had been sent back 
to bring them along. While waiting for them, we found ourselves 
surrounded by a band of human bloodhounds, headed by the notfirious 
deputy-marshal of the United States, Wood. I afterward learned 

1 The prisoners all cursed terribly at their ill luck in being captured. 
Brown said to them : " Gentlemen, you do very wrong to thus take the 
name of God in vain. Besides, it is very foolish ; for if there is a God 
you can gain nothing by such profanity ; and if there is no God, how fool- 
ish it is to ask God's curses on anything ! " The men saw their folly, 
ceased swearing, and joined willingly in the morning and evening prayers 
of the party during the five days they were held prisoners. 



486 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BKOWN. [ISSQ. 

that he was put on our track by a traitor from New Hampshire, 
iianieti Hussey. Whipple lived alone iu a small empty cabin near 
the one we occupied. There had been heavy rains, which produced 
a freshet ; and one day as he walked a short distance from the cabin 
to see whether the waters had subsided, eight of the marshal's men 
came uj)on him suddenly, and asked him if he had seen any negroes 
thereabout. He told them if they would come with him he would 
show them some, and conducted them to his cabin where he had left 
his riile. He came back immediately and pointed his I'ifle at the 
leader, commanding him to surrender, which he did at once. The 
other men put spurs to their horses, and rode oflf as fast as possible. 
From that time I was the sole bodyguard of Captain Brown, the 
_^eleven fugitives, and the prisoner who had surrendered, — Whii)ple 
keeping a sharp lookout as our sentry. We were detained at this 
place about three tlays. At last our provisions arrived, and we were 
joined by a band of Topeka boys who had walked down in the night 
to aid us. We then started on our journey. A short distance from 
our road was Muddy Creek, where the marshal, supposing our party 
must pass that M'ay, stationed himself on the opposite side of the 
creek, with eighty armed men, for he had made careful preparations, 
well knowing that it was no joke to attack old Brown. Captain 
Brown had with him only twenty-three white men, all told. He 
placed them in double file, in front of the emigrant wagons, and said, 
' Now go straight at 'em, boys ! They '11 be sure to run.' In obe- 
dience to this order, we marched towards the creek, but scarcely had 
the foremost entered the water when the valiant marshal mounted his 
horse, and rode off in haste. His men followed as fast as possible, 
but they were not all so lucky as he was in untying their horses from 
the stumps and bushes. The scene was ridiculous beyond descrip- 
tion ; some horses were hastily mounted by two men. One man 
grabbed tight hold of the tail of a horse, trying to leap on from be- 
hind, while the rider was putting the spurs into his sides ; so he went 
flying through the air, his feet touching the ground now and then. 
Those of our men who had horses followed them about six miles, 
and brought back with them four prisoners and five horses. Mean- 
while Captain Brown and the rest of his company succeeded in draw- 
ing the emigrant wagons through the creek by means of long ropes. 
This battle of Muddy Creek was known ever after in Kansas as ' The 
Battle of the Spurs.' When we resumed our journey, the captain did 
not think it prudent to allow the five prisoners to mount their horses 
lest they should escape and bring a fresh party to attack us. So he 
told them they must walk ; but as he meant them no unkindncss, he 
would walk with them. They went on together, he tallung with thoui 
all the way concerning the wickedness of slavery, and the meanness of 



1859.] THROUGH KAXSAS TO CANADA. 487 

slavehunting. He kept them with us all night ; in the morning he 
told tliem that they might make the best of their way back on foot. 
Their horses were retained from prudential motives, as it was ob- 
viously not for the safety of our colored emigrants to have these men 
return very speedily. The horses captui-ed from Marshal Wood's 
posse were given to the brave Topeka boys who had walked so far 
to help us." 

Another comrade, Jacob Willetts, of Topeka, says : — 

"I lived on a farm a short distance from Topeka at the time 
Brown was last in Kansas. When he came up north he stopped 
wdth my near neighbor, Mr. Sheridan, and sent for me. When I got 
there he wanted me to go to town on business for him. I came down 
that night with him to cross the river, and on the way he told me he 
had some colored people with him, who were in need, and asked me if 
I could do anything to help them. They had no shoes, and but little 
to eat. I went out among the houses and into several stores and got 
a number of pairs of shoes and some little money for the good cause. 
As we were going down to the river, I noticed Brown shivering, and 
that his legs trembled a good deal. I suspected something, and as I 
sat beside him on my horse I reached down and felt of his panta- 
loons, and found they were of cotton, thin and suited to summer, not 
to the cold weather we had then. I asked him : ' Mr. Brown, have 
you no drawers ? ' He said he had not. * Well,' I said, ' there is no 
time to go to the store now ; but I have on a pair that were new to- 
day, and if you will take them you can have them and welcome.' 
After a few words he agreed to it. We got down beside the wagons 
on the boat ; I took the drawers off, and he put them on. I don't re- 
member what day this was ; but one Sunday morning, not a great 
while after, we got word that Brown was surrounded near Holton. J 
could not go just then, but got started during the day, and when we 
got to Holton we found that the way had been cleared and Brown 
had gone on." 

Another writer continues the narrative thus : — 

" The trip after leaving Holton was accompanied with great hard- 
ships. By pressing through rapidly, despite extremely cold weather 
and drifted roads, the crossing of the Missouri was made at Nebraska 
City before a force could be gathered to intercept them. At Tabor 
Brown had formerly been received with great hospitality and treated 
in the friendliest manner; but the very people who had formerly con- 
tributed to his wants so liberally now felt called upon to assemble and 
resolve that Brown's conduct in crossing into a slave State and. forcing 



488 l-IFE AND LETl'ERS OF JOHN BROWN. [IS59. 

uoijToos away was im-ousisttMit witli tlic t("ai'liiiii;-8 of tho Hiblo and 
with I'hristiaiiity. This was vory lUsaiiivoahlo to Brown, who suji- 
posoil tho trooil nion of Tabor woiv tho fiiomls of fugitives. Hut tho 
Tabin" poopU\ though good Kt>{nibHoan voters, were alarmed, and 
doelared such fugitives otnitrabaud. A pubUc mooting was eaUed for 
Monday morning, and announced in the ehnrelios of tliat wlu>h' region 
on the t>undaY preoeding. Tho peopU> tioekcd in. and a Missouri shive- 
hoUlor was there as well as John Brown and iiis lieutenant John lieury 
Ka^ji, who was killed at Harper's Ferry. The meeting was addressed 
by "a deacon, who had hitherto beeu reckoned an Abolitionist, but 
uow called ou his fellow-Cluistians to declare that tho forcible rescue 
of slaves was robbery and might load to murder, and that tho citizens 
of Tabor liad nt) sympathy with John Brown in his late acts.^ When 
tho di'acon liad offered his resolution and made his speech, another 
resolution was otlerod as a substitute by Jauios Vincent, but drawn 
up by Kagi, to this otiect : — 

♦ Whereas, John Brown and his associates have been guilty of robbery 
and nuutler in the State of Missouri, 

' Htm^lroi, That we, the eiti/ens of Tabor, ivjmdiate his conduct and 
tlieii-s, aiul will hereupon take thcni into custody, and hold tlunu to await 
the action of the Missouri authorities.' 

'* The meeting evaded this caustic tost of its sineority, but went on 
dentnincing Brown and his acts. In tho midst of these natural but 
disirraceful proceedings, John Brown arose, aud left the meetiug, in 
aggrieved tiilence." 

He uever returned to Tabor, but from Springilale, a week 
or two later, he wrote to a friend in Tabor as follows : — 

RECEPTION OF BKOWX AXO TARTY AT GKIXXELL, IOWA, COM- 
PARED WITH PKOCEEDIXGS AT TABOR. 

SVRINGDALE, lowA, Feb. 25, 1S59. 
1 . Whole party and teams kept for two days free of cost. 
'2. Sundry articles of clothing given to the captives. 

3. Bread, meat, cakes, pies. olc. pivpared for our journey. 

4. Full houses for two nights in succession, at which meetings 
Brown and Kagi spoke, and wove loudly cheered and fully indorsed. 

1 Here is the resolution adopted by the citizens of Tabor. Feb. 7, 1S59 : 

Resi^hyd, Tli.it white we symvatliizo with the i^ppiv-ssed. and will do all that we eon- 

soieutiously Cim to help them in their effort.* for freedom, nevertheless we have no 

syiniv<thy with those who go to slave States to entice away slaves iuid take property 

or life when neoessarv to attain that end. ^ c -. a . 

J. S. Smith, Secirtary. 



i 



1859.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 489 

Three Cuugregational clergymen attended the meeting on Sabbath 
evening (noti(;e of which was given out from the pulpit). All of 
them took part in justifying our course and in urging contributions 
in our liehalf. There was no dissenting speaker present at either 
meeting. Mr. Grinnell spoke at length ; and has since labored to 
procure us a free and safe conveyance U> Chicago, and eflected it. 

5. Contributions in cash amounting to S2G.50. 

6. Last, but not least, public thanksgiving to Almighty God of- 
fered up by Mr. Grinnell in the behalf of the whole company for His 
great mercy and protecting care, with prayers for a continuance of 
those blessings. 

As the action of Tab(jr friends has been published in the newspa- 
pers by some of her people (as I suppose), would not friend Gaston 
or some other friend give publicity to all the above ? 

Respectfully your friend, John Browx. 

P. S. Our reception among the Quaker friends here has been most 
cordial. Yours truly, J. B. 

To quiet the scruples of some persons in the North, Brown 
made these notes for a speech : — 

"vindication of the invasion, etc. 

"The Denver truce was broken; and (1) It was in accordance 
with my settled policy; (2) It was intended as a discriminating blow 
at .slavery ; (3) It was calculated to lessen the value of slaves ; (4) It 
was (over and above all other motives) right. 

" Duty of all perscms in regard to this matter. 

" Criminality of neglect in this matter. 

" Suppose a case. 

"Ask for further support." 

The family letters at this period are few, but I find some. 
The first was written while in southern Kansas with his 
fugitives, waiting for a favorable time to take them to Can- 
ada ; but he did not trust the tidings of what he had done 
or exactly where he was to a letter, which might be taken 
from the mails in Missouri. 

To his Family. 

OsAWATOMiE, Kansas, Jan. 11, 1859. 
Dear Children, all, — I have but a moment in which to tell 
you that I am in middling health ; but have not been able to tell you 



490 LIFE AND LETTERS OE JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

as yet where to write me. This I hope will be different soon. 1 
suppose you get Kansas news generally through the papers.^ May 
God ever bless you all ! 

Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 

Tabok, Iowa, Feb. 10, 1859. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — I am once more in Iowa, 
tlmmgh tlie great mercy of God. Those with me, and other friends, 
are well. I hope soon to be at a point where I can learn of yt)ur 
welfare, and perhaps send you something besides my good wishes. I 
suppose you get the common news. May the God of my fathers be 
your God ! 

SpRiNonALE, Cedar County, Iowa, March 2, 1859. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — I write to let you know that 
all is yet well with me, except that I am not very strong. I have 
something of the ague yet hanging about me. I confidently expect 
to be able to send you some help about team, etc., in a very few 
days. However, if I should be delayed about it longer than I could 
wish, do not be discouraged. I was nmch relieved to find on coming 
here that you had got the draft sent by Mr. Painter. He has been 
helping me a little in advance of its being due, since I got on. Do 
not be in haste to buy a team until you can have time to get further 
word from me. I shall do as fast as I can ; and may God bless and 
keep you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

Iowa City is not far from Springdale, and it may have 
been the proslavery postmaster there concerning whom this 
anecdote is told : In the midst of a crowd on the street- 
corner a quiet old countryman was seen listening to a cham- 
pion of slavery, who was denouncing Brown as a reckless, 
bloody outlaw, — a man who never dared to fight fair, but 
skulked, and robbed, and murdered in the dai'k ; adding, 

1 They would thus learn that he had made his foray, and that both 
Governor Jb'dary of Kansas and President Buchanan had set a price on liis 
head. Cliarles Robinson's account of this foray (published twenty years 
later in the " Topeka Commonwealth") is characteristic : "Brown and 
his heroes went over the line into Missouri, killed an old peaceable citi- 
zen, and robbed him of all tlie personal elFects they could drive or carry 
away. Such proceedings caused the Free-State men to organize to drive 
him from the Territory ; and he went to Harper's Ferry, where he dis- 
played his wonderftil generalship in committing suicide." 



1859.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 491 

" If I could get sight of liim I would shoot him on the spot ; 
I would never give him a chance to steal any more slaves." 
" My friend," said the countryman in his modest way, " you 
talk very brave ; and as you will never have a better oppor- 
tunity to shoot Old Brown than right here and now, you can 
have a chance." Then, drawing two revolvers from his 
pockets he offered one to the braggart, requesting him to 
take it and shoot as quick as he pleased. The mob orator 
slunk away, and Brown returned his pistols to his pocket. 

When this affair happened, Brown's expedition from Kan- 
sas back to Canada was nearly over. On the 12tli of March, 
1859, he saw his twelve freedmen (among them a neAV- 
born infant) safely ferried across from Detroit to Windsor, 
where " the paw of the Lion " protected them.^ After 
Brown's capture in Virginia, public attention was directed 
to them ; and their condition was described by several 
friends who visited them. When they heard Brown's 
speech in court read to them they burst into tears and sobs, 
declaring that they wished they could die instead of their 
liberator ; and one woman said, " If the Bible is true, he 
will have his reward in heaven, for he followed the Bible 
in this world." His action, however, like that of earlier 
Christians, brought much reproach upon himself at first. 
Even his stanch friend Dr. Howe, who as a young man 
had taken part in the Greek revolution, the French revolu- 
tion of July, and the Polish revolution of 1831, was dis- 
tressed, on his return from Cuba in the spring of 1859, to 
find that Brown had actually been taking the property of 
slaveholders to give their escaping slaves an outfit, — and 
for a time withdrew his support. ISTor did he evej sustain 
Brown's Virginia scheme again so heartily as he had done 
before this visit to Cuba and Carolina.^ Meanwhile, the 

1 When he parted from them Brown said : "Lord, permit Thy servant 
to die in peace ; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation ! I could not 
brook the thought that any ill should befall yon, — least of all, that you 
should be taken back to slavery. The arm of Jehovah protected us." 

^ Dr. Howe, returning from Cuba (whither he accompnnied Theodore 
Parker in February, 1859), journeyed through the Caroliiias, and there ac- 
cepted the hospitality of Wade Hampton and other rich planters ; and it 
shocked him to tliink that he might be iostrupiental in giving up to fire 



492 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

secret committee were not idle. The fifty dollars sent 
to Brown in Kansas, Aug. 25, 1858, and acknowledged by 
him September 13, came from Gerrit Smith, who first and 
last gave him more than a thousand dollars.^ The long 
letters frojn Kansas were sent by me to Higginson, Oct. 13, 
1858, with this comment : — 

'* I received the enclosed letter from our friend a M'eek or two 
since. You see he is anxious about future operations. Can you do 
anything for him before next March ; and if so, what ? The partners 
in Boston have talked the matter over, but have not yet come to any 
definite proposal. I send you also an older letter, which should have 
been sent to you, but by some fault ot others was not." 

Higginson expressed the hope that the enterprise would 
not be deferred longer than the spring of 1859, and made 
some contribution to the fund ; as did , also Parker and 
the other members of the secret committee. No active 
movement to raise money was undertaken, however, until 
the next spring. On the 19th of January, 1859, three 
weeks after Brown's incursion into Missouri, I wrote to 
Higginson : — 

"I have had no private advices from J. B. since I wrote you. 
He has begun the work in earnest, I fancy, and will find enougli to do 
where he is, for the present. I earnestly hope he may not fall into 
the hands of the United States or Missouri. If he does not, I think 
we may look for great results from this spark of fire. If Forbes is a 
traitor, he will now show his hand, and we can pin him in some 
way." 

and pillage their noble mansions. But the Civil War did that five or six 
years later, with Howe's full consent. 

1 Most of the smaller sums which Bvovra received during the years 
1858 and 1859, I suppose, passed through my hands ; while the larger 
sums were paid to him directly by Mr. Stearns or other contributors. 
Most of the correspondence on this Virginia business also went through 
my hands ; it being Brown's custom to write one letter, to be read by the 
half-dozen persons with whom he desired to communicate ; and this letter 
generally (by no means always) coming to me in the first instance. My 
custom was to show it to Mr. Parker and Dr. Howe, when they were at 
home, then to send it to Mr. Stearns, who sometimes forwarded it to 
Higginson or some more distant correspondent, and sometimes returned it 
to mo. 



1859.] THROUGH KANSAS TO CANADA. 493 

I also wrote later, as follows : — 

March 4. 

" Brown was at Tabor on the 10th of February, with his stock in 
fine condition, as he says in a letter to G. Smith. He also says he 
is ready with some new men to set his mill in operation, and seems 
to be coming East for that purpose. Mr. Smith proposes to raise 
one thousand dollars for him, and to contribute one hundred dollars 
himself. I think a larger sum ought to be raised ; but can we raise 
so much as this? Brown says he thinks any one of us who talked 
with him might raise the sum if we should set about it; perhaps this 
is so, but I doubt. As a reward for what he has done, perhaps 
money might be raised for him. At any rate, he means to do the 
work, and I expect to hear of him in New York within a few weeks. 
Dr. Howe thinks John Forbes and some others not of our party 
would help the project if they knew of it." ^ 

Following up this last suggestion, I sounded several anti- 
slavery men of wealth and influence in the spring of 1859, 
and did obtain subscriptions from persons who were willing 
to givd to a brave man forcibly interfering with slavery, 
without inquiring very closely what he would do next. 
But Parker (who never returned to Boston, but died in 
Florence soon after Brown's execution) contributed nothing 
after 1858 ; nor did Higginson give so much, or interest 
himself so warmly in the enterprise after its first postpone- 
ment. All this would have made it more difdcult to raise the 
money which Brown needed, had it not been for the munifi- 
cence of Mr. Stearns, who at each emergency came forward 
with his indispensable gifts. After placing about twelve 
hundred dollars in Brown's hands in the spring and sum- 
mer of 1859, he still continued to aid him, in one way and 

1 Dr. Howe gave me the following letter at New York, Feb. 5, 
1859: — 
John M. Foebes, Esq. 

Dear Sir. — If you would like to hear an honest, keen, and veteran backwoodsman 
disclose some plans for deliverin.n- our land from the curse of slavery, the hearer will do 
so. I think I know him well. He is of the Puritan militant order. He is an enthusi- 
ast, ypt cool, keen, and cautions. He has a martyr's spirit. He will a.sk nothing of 
you but the pledge that you keep to yourself wliat he may say. 
Faithfully yours, 

S. G, Howe. 

I never used this letter, but personally introduced Brown to Mr. Forbes 
in May, 1859, at his house in Milton, near Boston. 



494 LIFE AND LET'l'ERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

another, until almost the day of the attack at Harper's 
Ferry. Gerrit Smith, also, was better than his word, and 
gave Brown more than seven hundred dollars between 
his return to Canada in March and his interview with 
Frederick Douglass in September, 1859. 

From Canada Brown went to Ohio, where he publicly 
sold the horses he had captured in Kansas, warning the 
purchasers of a possible defect in the title. ^ He then 
reported for counsel and encouragement at North Elba, 
at Peterboro', and finally, in May, 1859, at Concord and 
Boston. 

1 A Vermont judge refused to recognize a slave as property, until his 
owner could bring before the court "a bill of sale from the Almighty." 
Brown fancied he held these horses by such a title. 



Note. — John Brown, Jr., says : "In the winter of 1857-58 I brought 
the arms from the railroad at Conneaut to Cherry Valley, stored them in 
the furniture warerooms of the King Brothers, and covered the boxes with 
a lot of ready-made coffins. In the following spring I was made slightly 
anxious one day by a visit from the township assessor, who in the line 
of his duty went up into the room where they were stored and took 
tlie number of the coffins in a somewhat hurried way, but fortunately 
without examining what was beneath them. On receipt of the letter from 
father, of May 11, 1858, I moved the arms (two wagon-loads) bj' night to 
the western part of the next township of Wa3'ne, and stored them in the 
barn of a farmer named William Coleman, who helped me by night to 
build a little store-room under his hay-mow. There they remained per- 
fectly secreted (his wife, even, did not know it) until I took them, again by 
niglit, to the canal at Hartstown, Penn., early in the summer of 1859, and 
shipped them as hardware to Chambersburg." This refers to the rifles, 
etc., afterward captured at the Kennedy farm. 



1859.1 JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS 495 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 

TN the broad and permanent sense of that comforting 
-*- word " friendship," John Brown had innumerable 
friends. When Wordsworth, in the flush of the noble 
pantheism which breathes through his earlier verse, ad- 
dressed the fallen Toussaint L'Ouverture in his French 
dungeon, he described the state of John Brown, and 
every generous champion of God's cause : — 

" Live, and take comfort ! Thou hast left behind 
Powers that will woik for thee, — air, earth, and skies. 
There 's not a breathing of the common wind 
That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies : 
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
And Love, and man's uncon(iuerable Mind." 

In the same sense, but more definitely, Emerson said at 
Salem five weeks after Brown's execution,^ — 

" I am not a little surprised at the easy effrontery with which politi- 
cal gentlemen, in and out of Congress, take it upon them to say that 
there are not a thousand men in the North who sympathize with 
John Brown. It would be far safer and nearer the truth to say that 
all people, in proportion to their sensibility and self-respect, sym- 
pathize with him. For it is impossible to see courage and di'sin- 
terestedness and the love that casts out fear, without sympathy. 
All women are drawn to him by their predominance of sentiment. 
All gentlemen, of course, are on his side. I do not mean by ' gen- 
tlemen ' people of scented hair and perfumed handkerchiefs, but men 
of gentle blood and generosity, ' fulfilled with all nobleness.' who, 
like the Cid, give the outcast leper a share of their bed ; like the 
dying Sidney, pass the cup of cold water to the wounded soldier who 

1 Emerson's "Miscellanies" (Boston, 18S4)' pp. 262, 263. 



496 LLFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BEOWN. [1839. 

needs it more. For what is the oath of gentle blood and knight- 
hood ? What but to protect the weak and k)wly against the strong 
oppressor! Nothing is more absurd than to complain of this sym- 
pathy, or to complain of a party of men united in opposition to slav- 
ery. As well complain of gravity or tlie ebb of tlie tide. Who makes 
the Abolitionist f The slaveholder. The senthnent of mercy is the 
natural recoil which the laws of the universe provide to protect man- 
kind from destruction by savage passions. And our blind statesmen 
go up and down, with committees of vigilance and safety, hunting 
for the origin of this new heresy. They will need a very vigilant 
committee, indeed, to find its birthplace, and a very strong force to 
root it up. For the arch- Abolitionist, older than Bi-own, and older 
than the Shenandoah Mountains, is Love, whose other name is Jus- 
tice, — which was before Alfred, before Lycurgus, before slavery, and 
will be after it." 

But in the narrower meaning of men and women who 
knew the purposes of John Brown, and gave him aid and 
comfort while he most needed them, he had but few friends, 
and some of those fell away from him when the hour of trial 
came. In Lis own family he was always understood, and 
had no cause to feel the full bitterness of that Scripture, 
"A man's foes shall be they of his own household." But 
beyond that family the number of persons who at any time 
both understood and sympathized with him in his main 
purpose was very small, — so that he valued and cherished 
disproportionately, perhaps, those who accepted his mission 
and helped it forward even by words and friendly listening, i 
There may have been a thousand men who knew that he 
meant to harass the slaveholders in some part of the South, 
with an armed force ; but of those who knew with any ful- 
ness the details of his Virginia enterprise, I suppose the 
number never at any one time exceeded a hundred, — and 
these were scattered over the whole country from Boston to 
Kansas, from Maryland to Canada. 

The earliest, most devoted, most patient, and noblest friend 
of Brown in this enterprise was his second wife, of whom 
too little has hitherto been known. Now that death has 

^ "It is some relief to a poor body," says Izaak Walton, speaking of 
George Herbert, "to be but heard with patience ;" and it was not every 
one who did Brown that justice. 



1816.1 JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 497 

released her from her long bereavement, and her modest 
reserve can no more be wounded by the public mention of 
her virtues, it is due to her silent and tender constancy that 
the tale of her life should be told. Mary Anne Brown (the 
daughter of Charles Day, a blacksmith of New England an- 
cestry, but settled in New York until about 1825) was born 
in Granville, N. Y., April 15, 1816. Her only school educa- 
tion was acquired before the age of ten, when she removed 
with her father and his younger children to a farm near 
Meadville, Penn., not far from the Delamaters (with whom 
she was connected) and from John BroAvn's tannery in Ran- 
dolph.^ Early in life she became a member of the Congre- 
gational Church, and continued in its communion until her 
death. When but sixteen years of age she became the wife 
of John Brown, and assumed the care of his five children, 
the eldest of whom was near her own age. She brought to 
the task good health, a strong, well-balanced mind, and an 
earnest desire to discharge every duty conscientiously. She 
became the mother of thirteen children, seven of whom 
died in childhood, — three of them in one week. She once 
remarked, " That was the time in my life when all my reli- 
gion, all my philosophy, and all my faith in God's goodness 
were put to the test.. My husband was away from home, 
prostrated by sickness ; I was helpless from illness ; in one 
week three of my little ones died of dysentery, — this but 
three months before the birth of another child. Three years 
after this sad time another little one, eighteen months old, 
was burned to death. Yet even in these trials God upheld 
me." 

She was of a large and firm mould, like a Roman mother, 
but with all the susceptible and yearning affection which 
the milder types of constancy display. She labored with her 
hands, and taught all her children to do the same ; she was 
trained to endure long absences from her husband and her 
sons, and that in periods of great anxiety, and when they 
were ill-spoken of among her neighbors. She soon became 
separated from her own kindred, and, like Ruth in the Scrip- 

^ The Delamaters are of Huguenot descent, and had intermarried with 
the Days, as well as with wealthier families of New. York. 

32 



498 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1882. 

tures, she silently said to her much-wandering husband : 
" Whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I 
will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God ; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but 
death part thee and me." But in his perilous campaigns, 
and with his scanty means, she could not accompany him 
save in prayers and wishes ; she was even denied that facility 
in writing letters which so often beguiles the weariness of 
absence.^ This modern Penelope had her loom and spindle, 
like the fabled one, but her labors were real, and supported 
her household. 

During all the time her husband was in Kansas she re- 
mained at North Elba with her three young daughters, and 
sometimes with no son to till her rocky farm. When the 
struggle at Harper's Ferry was terminated, and she knew 
that her husband's life-work was ended, she visited him and 
received his last messages ; her warrior was brought home 
to her and buried by her door. After all was over, she re- 
mained in her lonely home until 1863 ; and in the following 
year, in company with her son Salmon and her daughters, 
made the long journey across the plains to California. 
For six 3'ears their home was at Red Bluff, and then in the 
town of Eohnerville for ten years. About 1880, with two 
daughters, she removed to Saratoga, Santa Clara County, 
which was her home until death. She had long felt a desire 
to return to the East, to visit scenes with which she had 
been familiar, and to greet friends from whom she liad long 
been separated ; but the narrowness of her fortunes had pre- . 
vented this. She was not even able to revisit the grave of 
her husband, to which thousands of strangers resorted. In 
1882, as she told me when I met her at North Elba, the 
way was providentially opened for the accomplishment of 
this desire, and she accepted the opportunity. Her journey 
was pleasant and mournful. In course of it she was per- 
mitted to recover the remains of her son Watson, and to see 
him buried, with the praise of friends and neighbors, beside 
his father on the Adirondac hillside. Public receptions were 

1 Heaven first tauglit letters for some wretch's aid, 
Some banished lover, or some caj)tive maid. — Pope. 



1883. 



JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 499 



tendered to her at Chicago, Boston, Springfield, and at the 
ca})ital of Kansas ; she visited the battle-grounds of her 
family there, and saw for the first time the dark waters of 
the IMarais des Cygnes and the Ottawa.^ 

Keturning to California, the fatigues of her journey and 
the strain upon her deep sensibilities, little perceived at the 
time (such was her silent fortitude), began to tell upon her 
robust constitution. During a visit to her son Salmon 
among the sheep-walks of northern California she was 
attacked with a lingering disease, from which she never 
recovered. The last two months of her life were spent 
in San Francisco for medical treatment, carefully watched 
over by her daughter Sarah, to whom she had been sister 
as well as mother, so strong was the bond of sympathy 
between them. 

The wife of John Brown was of a type more common 
in our age than is the austere Puritanic order to which 
he belonged, but by no means frequent, — resembling those 
mothers in Israel, diligent and God-fearing, of whom her 
Bible told her. She was far from the culture of modern 
life, but keenly alive to great ideas, and of a broad catholi- 
city in spirit, which embraced slaveholders and murderers in 
its love, and never sought vengeance as justice. She read 
the Bible daily, and with humble attention. A true Chris- 
tian of the antique pattern, she gladly recognized as brethren 
all whom she believed to be God's children, wherever she 
found them, or by whatever name they were called. Nar- 
rowness in religion she could not understand, nor ever sought 
to confine God to the purlieus of her own church. 

Upon so firm a basis rested the domestic happiness of 
John Brown ; and his children, though he sometimes chided 

1 Mr. Dwight Tbacher, of Topeka, writes me (March 30, 1885) : 
"When the widow of John Brown made her first and only visit to Kan- 
sas, in November, 1882, she was for several days my gnest. Eeilected in 
her bearing, her words, her style of thought and expression, I fancied I 
could see unmistakable evidences of the lofty and rugged plane of life upon 
which the whole family had lived. She was the soul of truthfulness, of 
candor, — and had an unworldly air, as of one who had dwelt among high 
and eternal verities. John Brown's gravity and devotion to duty were 
admiriibly retlectcd in his widow." 



500 LIFE AND LETl^ERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1856. 

their religious dissent, were worthy of such parents. His 
quiver was full of those arrows which the wise king praises, 
and he drew from it the means of attack upon wrong. But 
for his sons, how different might have been his own fate ! 
They stood about him as guards and recruits, and died for 
him as bravely as he would have died for them. Not often 
in the divergent and estranging paths of modern life have 
we seen a family so patriarchal in habit and in action. 

Outside of his household the friends of John Brown were 
found in every rank and condition of life, and those whom 
he once attached were seldom estranged from him, though 
they might not keep pace with him in his methods or pur- 
poses. Perhaps the best exemplification of this was given 
by that generous and right-minded man, John A. Andrew, 
afterward Governor of Massachusetts, and one of the most 
helpful patriots in the Civil War. In the tumult of pub- 
lic opinion which followed Brown's foray in Virginia, Mr. 
Andrew, then a leading lawyer and Republican politician 
in Boston, said manfully, "Whatever may be thought of 
John Brown's acts, John Brown himself was rights 

Foremost among the friends of John Brown in New Eng- 
land must be named Emerson, the poet-sage of Concord. In 
1856 he had taken the same view of things in Kansas which 
Mr. Andrew and Josiah Quincy expressed, — but he knew 
how to utter his thought in more trenchant words. At 
a Kansas aid meeting in Cambridge (Sept. 10, 1856), he 
said : — 

" In tliis country for the last few years the Government has been 
the chief obstruction to the common weal. Who doubts that Kansas 
wouUl have been very well settled if the United States had let it alone? 
The Government armed and led the ruffians against the poor farmers. 
... In the free States we give a snivelling support to slavery. The 
judges give cowardly interpretations to the law, in direct opposition 
to the known foundation of all law, — that every immoral statute is 
void. And here, of Kansas, the President says, ' Let the complain- 
ants go to the coui-ts ; ' ihoiii;h lie knows that when the poor jdundered 
farmer comes to the court, Jie finds the ri»<)lea(1er rvho has robbed him 
dismoHntmg from his own horse, and uiibiickhng his knife to sit as 
his judge." ^ 

^ Emerson's " Miscellanies," pp. 244-246. 



1857.1 JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 501 

Mr. Emerson's Diary for March, 1857, says : — 

*' Captain John Brown gave a good account of himself in the 
Town Hall last night to a meeting of citizens. One of his good 
points was the folly of the peace party in Kansas, who believed that 
their strength lay in the greatness of their wrongs, and so discoun- 
tenanced resistance. He wished to know if their wrong was greater 
than the negro's, and what kind of strength that gave to the negro ? 
He believes, on his own experience, that one good, believing, strong- 
minded man is worth a hundred — nay, twenty thousand — men with- 
out character, for a settler in a new country, and that the right men 
will give a permanent direction to the fortunes of a State. For one of 
these bullying, drinking rowdies, he seemed to think cholera, small- 
pox, and consumption were as valuable recruits. The first man wlio 
went into Kansas from Missouri to interfere in the elections, he 
thought, * had a perfect right to be shot.' He gave a circumstantial 
account of the battle of Black Jack, where twenty-three Missouriaus 
surrendered to nine Abolitionists. He had three thousand sheep in 
Ohio, and would instantly detect a strange sheep in his llock. A cow 
can tell its calf by secret signals, he thinks, by the eye, to run away, to 
lie down, and hide itself. He always makes friends with his horse or 
mule (or with the deer that visit his Ohio farm) ; and when he sleeps 
on his horse, as he does as readily as on his bed, his horse does not 
start or endanger him. Brown described the expensiveness of war in 
a country where everything that is to be eaten or worn by man or 
beast must be dragged a long distance on wheels. ' God protects 
us in winter,' he said ; ' no Missourian can be seen in the country 
until the grass comes up again.'" 

Thus far the first Diary, as it now stands. But from 
time to time, as he saw Brown again, or heard of him from 
friends or from the newspapers, Emerson made other notes, 
which he has thus edited : — 

" For himself, Brown is so transparent that all men see him 
through. He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage 
and integrity are e,§teemed, — the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with 
no by-ends of his own. Many of us have seen him, and every one 
who has heard him speak has been impressed alike by his simide, 
artless goodness and his sublime courage. He joins that perfect 
Puritan faith which brought his ancestor to Plymouth Rock, with 
his grandfather's ardor in the Revolutitm. He believes in two articles 
— two instruments, shall I say ? — the Golden Rule and the Declara- 
tion of Independence ; and he used this expression in a conversation 



502 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

here concerning them : ' Better that a whole generation of men, wo- 
men, and children should pass away by a violent death, than that one 
word of either should be vi< dated in this country.' There is a Union- 
ist, there is a strict constructionist for you ! He believes in the 
Union of the States, and he conceives that the only obstruction to 
the Union is slavery; and for that reason, as a patriot, he works for 
its abolition. 

" He grew up a religious and manly person, in severe poverty ; a 
fair specimen of the best stock of New England, having that force of 
thought and that sense of right which are the warp and woof of great- 
ness. Our farmers were Orthodox Calvinists, mighty in the Scrip- 
tures: had learned that life was a preparation, a ' probation,' to use 
their word, for a higher world, and was to be spent in loving and 
serving mankind. Thus was formed a romantic character, absolutely 
without any vulgar trait; living to ideal ends, without any mixture 
of self-indulgence or compromise, such as lowers the value of Itenevo- 
lent and tlioughtful men we know; abstemious, refusing luxuries, not 
sourly and reproachfully, but simply as unfit for his habit ; quiet and 
gentle as a child, in the house. And as happens usually to men of 
romantic character, his fortunes were romantic. Walter Scott would 
have delighted to di-aw his picture and trace his adventurous career. 
A shepherd and herdsman, he learned the manners of animals, and 
knew the secret signals by wliich animals communicate. He made 
his hard bed on the mountains with them; he learned to drive his 
flock through thickets all but impassable; he had all the skill of a 
sheplicrd l<y choice of breed and by wise industry to obtain tlie best 
wool, and that for a course of years." 

To the like purpose do the Diaries of Thoreau, during the 
years 1857-59, speak of Brown : — 

" I should say that he is an old-fashioned man in his respect for 
the Constitution, and liis faith in the permanence of this Union. 
Slavery he deems to be wholly opposed to these, and he is its deter- 
mined foe. He is by descent and birth a New England farmer, a 
man of great common-sense, deliberate and practical as that class is, 
and tenfold more so, — like the best of tlioso who stood at Concord 
Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker Hill; cmly he 
was firmer and higher-princijded than nny that I have chanced to 
hear of as there. It was no Abolititm lecturer that converted him. 
Ethiui Allen and Stark, with whom lie may in some respects be 
com))ared, were rangers in a lower and less important field. They 
could bravely face their country's foes, but he had the courage to face 



1859.1 JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 503 

his country herself when she was iu the wrong. A Western writer 
says, to account for his escape from so many perils, that he was con- 
cealed uuder a 'rural exterior,' — as if, iu that prairie-land, a hero 
should, by good rights, wear a citizen's dress only. 

" He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits 
whom he would accept, and only about a dozen (among them his 
own sons) in whom he had perfect, faith. When he was here, he 
.showed me a little manuscript book, — his ' orderly-book ' I think he 
called it, — containing the names of his company in Kansas, and tlie 
rules by which they bound themselves ; and he stated that several 
of tliem had already sealed the contract with their blood. When 
some orle remarked that with the addition of a chaplain it would 
hiive been a perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would 
have been glad to add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found 
one who could fill that office worthily. I believe that he had prayers 
in his camp morning and evening, nevertheless. He is a man of 
Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your 
table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly and fare 
hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting himself for difiicult 
enterprises, a life of exposure. A man of rare common-sense and 
directness of speech as of action, a transcendentalist. above all a man 
of ideas and principles, — that is what distinguishes him. Not yield- 
ing to a whim or transient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a 
life. I noticed that he did not overstate anything, but spoke within 
bounds. I remember particularly how, in his speech here, he referred 
to what his family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the 
least vent to his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary 
chiinney-flne. Also referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, 
he said, rapidly paring away his speech, like an experienced soldier 
keeping a reserve of force and meaning, ' Tliey had a perfect right to 
be hung.' He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to 
Buncome or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent any- 
thing, but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own resolu- 
tion ; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and eloquence in 
Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It was like the 
speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordinary king. 

"When I expressed surprise that he could live in Kansas at all 
with a price set on his head, and so large a number, including the 
authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, 
' It is perfectly well understood that I will not be taken.' Much 
of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffer- 
ing froni poverty and from sickness which was the consequence of 



504 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it 
might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes 
commonly did not care to go in after hiin. He could even come out 
into a town where there were more Border Ruffians than Free-State 
men, and transact business without delaying long, and yet not be 
molested. ' For,' said he, ' no little handful of men were willing to 
undertake it, and a large body could not be got togetlier in season.' 

'' Yet he did not foolishly attribute his success to his ' star,' or to 
any magic. He said truly, that the reason why such greatly superior 
numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, 
because they ' lacked a cause,' — a kind of armor which he and his 
party never lacked. AVhen the time came, few men were found 
willing to lay down their lives in defence of what tliey knew to be 
wrong ; they did not like that this should be their last act in this 
world." 

Mr. Alcott's record of the man is more methodical as to 
days and events. He writes : — 

OSAWATOMIE BROWN, 

" Concord, May 8, 1859. This evening I hear Captain Brovrn 
speak at the town hall on Kansas affairs, and the part taken by him 
in the late troubles there. He tells his story with surpassing sim- 
plicity and sense, impressing us all deeply by his courage and reli- 
gious earnestness. Our best people listen to his words, — Emerson, 
Thoreau, Judge Hoar, my wife ; and some of them contribute some- 
tliing in aid of his plans without asking particulars, such confidence 
does he inspire in his integrity and abilities. I have a few words 
with him after his speech, and find him superior t<^ legal traditions, 
and a disciple of the Right in ideality and the afiiiirs of state. He 
is Sanborn's guest, and stays for a day only. A young man named 
Anderson accompanies him. They go armed, I am told, and will 
defend themselves, if necessary. I believe they are now on their 
way to Connecticut and farther south ; but the Captain leaves us 
much in the dark concerning his destination and designs for the 
coming months. Yet he does not conceal his hatred of slavery, nor 
his readiness to strike a blow for freedom at the proper moment. I 
infer it is his intention to run ofi" as many slaves as he can, and so 
render that property insecure to the master. I think him equal to 
anything he dares, — the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and 
with the martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was 
deeply intent in the making of him. He is of imposing appearance, 



1359.] JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 505 

personally, — tall, with square shoulders and standing ; eyes of deep 
gray, and couchaut, as if ready to spring at the least rustling, daunt- 
less yet kindly ; his hair shooting backward from low down on his 
forehead; nose trenchant and Romanesque; set lips, his voice sup- 
pressed yet metallic, suggesting deep reserves ; decided mouth ; the 
countenance and frame charged with power throughout. Since here 
last he has added a flowing beard, which gives the soldierly air 
and the port of an apostle. Though sixty years old, he is agile and 
alert, and ready for any audacity, in any crisis. I think him about 
the manliest man I have ever seen, — the type and synonym of the 
Just. I wished to see and speak with him under circumstances per- 
mitting of large discourse. I am curious concerning his matured 
opinions on the great questions, — as of personal independence, the 
citizen's relation to the State, the riglit of resistance, slavery, the 
higher law, temperance, the pleas and reasons for freedom, and ideas 
generally. Houses and hospitalities were invented for the entertain- 
ment of sucli questions, — for the great guests of manliness and no- 
bility thus entering and speaking face to face : — 

•' ' Man is his own star ; and the soul that can 
Render an honest and a perfect man 
Commands all light, all influence, all fate. 
Nothing to him falls early or too late : 
Our acts our angels are, — or good or ill, 
Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still.' " 

The days pass on, and Brown makes his foray in Vir- 
ginia, the news of it reaching Concord on the 18th of Octo- 
ber, 1859. For some days the dismal tidings find no entry 
in the daily journal at the Orchard House, since Mr. Alcott 
is busy harvesting his apples. But a week after the attack 
at Harper's Ferry this record appears, followed by many 
more : — 

" October 23. Road with sympathy and a sense of the impossibil- 
ity of any justice being done him by South or North, by partisans or 
people, —by the general mankind, — the newspaper accounts of 
Captain Brown's endeavor at Harper's Ferry, now coming to us and 
exciting politicians and everybody everywhere. This man I heard 
speak early in the season at our town hall, and had the pleasure of 
grasping his firm hand and of speaking with him after his lecture. 
This deed of his, so surprising, so mixed, so confounding to most 
persons, will give an impulse to freedom and humanity, whatever 
becomes of its victim and of the States that howl over it. There 



506 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1S59. 

should be enough of courage and intrepidity in the North, — in Mas- 
saehusetts men, — to steal South, since they cannot march openly 
there, rescue hiai from the slaveholders, the State and United States 
courts, and save him for the impending crisis. Captain Higginsou 
would be good for that leadership, and No. 64 ^ will be ready to 
march with the rest. Captain Brown is of Puritan stock, and comes 
from Connecticut. He was born at Torrington, in Litchfield County, 
May 9, 1 800, about fifteen miles from the place of my nativity. 

" Concord, Sunday, Oct. 30, 1859. Thoreau reads a paper of his 
on John Brown, his virtues, spirit, and deeds, at the vestry this 
evening, and to the delight of his company, I am told, — the best 
that C(Hild be gathered on short notice, and among them Emerson. 
I am not informed in season, and have my meeting at the same 
time. I doubt not of its excellence and eloquence, and wish he may 
have opportunities of reading it elsewhere.^ 

" Fridai/, Nov. 4. Thoreau calls and reports about the reading of 
his lecture on Brown at Boston and Worcester. Thoreau has good 
right to speak fully his mind concerning Brown, and has been the 
first to speak and celebrate the hero's courage and magnanimity. It 
is these which he discerns and praises. The men have much in 
common, — the sturdy manliness, straightforwardness, and indepen- 
dence. It is well they met, and that Thoreau saw what he sets 
forth as none else can. Both are sons of Anak and dwellers in Na- 
ture, — Brown taking more to the human side, and driving straight 
at institutions, while Thoreau contents himself with railing at and 
letting them otherwise alone. He is the proper panegyrist of the 
virtues he owns himself so largely, and so comprehends in another. 

'^ Saturday, November 5. Dine with Sanborn. He suggests that I 
should go to Virginia and get access to Brown if I can, and Governor 
Wise ; thinks I have some advantages to fit me for the adventure. 
I might ascertain whether Brown would accept a rescue from any 
company we might raise. Ricketson, from New Bedford, arrives. 
He and Thoreau take supper with us. Thoreau talks freely and 

' Mr. Alcott himself. 

2 Thoreau's editor, Mr. Harrison Blake, has sent me this note from his 

friend : — 

Concord, Oct. 31 [1S50]. 

Mr. Blake, — I spoke to my townsmen List evening, on "The Hiaracter of Cajitain 
Brown, now in tlie Clutches of the Slaveholder." I should like to sjieak to any coni- 
jiany in Worcester who may wish to hear me ; and will eome if only my expenses are i)aid. 
I think that we sliould expre.ss ourselves at oiiee, while Brown is alive. The sooner, 
the better. Perhaps Hi.<,'Ki"''0" "i^Y '''^e to have a meeting. Wednesday evening would 
be a good time. The people here are deeply interested in the matter. Let nie have an 
answer as soon as may be. 

Henry D. Tjioklau. 

P. S. I may be engaged toward the end of the week. 



i 



1859.] JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 507 

enthusiastically about Brown, denouncing the Union, the President, 
the States, and Virginia particularly ; wishes to publish his late 
speech, and has seen Boston publishers, but failed to find any to 
print it for him." 

No list of Brown's friends could be complete without the 
names of those two practical idealists of Medford, — George 
and Mary Stearns, to whom he was more indebted for hos- 
pitalities and for liberal gifts of money and arms than to 
any, perhaps all, other persons. Mr. Stearns was a merchant 
of Boston, of large income, but of larger heart, who was in- 
spired and seconded in all his patriotic efforts by his sensi- 
tive and clear-sighted wife, from whom no trait of character 
was hidden. Mrs. Stearns saw at a glance across the whole 
field, and was critical in her judgments; but she accepted 
John Brown as a prophet and hero from the first. Her 
husband, of slower speech and more deliberate temper, had 
misgivings now and then, but followed confidently the in- 
spiration of his wife. Of him Emerson said, in a funeral 
address in 1867 : — 

"We recall the all but exclusive devotion of this excellent man 
during tlie last twelve years to public and patriotic iutercsts. Known 
until that time in no very wide circle as a man of skill and persever- 
ance in his business, of pure life, of retiring and affectionate habits, 
happy in his domestic relations, his extreme interest in the national 
politics, then growing more anxious year by year, engaged him to 
scan the fortunes of freedom with keener attention. He was an early 
laborer in the resistance to slavery. This brought him into sympathy 
with the people of Kansas. As early as 1855 the Emigrant Aid So- 
ciety was fiirmed, and in 1856 he organized the Massachusetts State 
Kansas Committee, by means of which a large amount of money was 
obtained for the Free- State men at times of the greatest need. He 
was the more engaged to this cause by making, in 1857, the ac- 
quaintance of Captain John Brown, who was not only an extraordi- 
nary man, but one who liad a rare magnetism for men of character, 
and attached some of the best and noblest to him, on very short 
acquaintnnce, by lasting ties. Mr. Stearns made himself at once 
necessary to Captain Brown as one who respected his inspirations, 
and had the magnanimity to trust him entirely, and to arm his hands 
with all needed help. For the relief of Kansas in 185G-57 his own 
contributions were the largest and the first. He never asked any one 
to give so much as he himself gave; and his interest was so mani- 



608 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

festly pure and sincere that he easily obtained eager oflFerings in 
quarters where otlier petitioners failed. He did not hesitate to be- 
come the banker of his clients, and to furnish them money and arins 
in advance of the subscriptions which he obtained. His first dona- 
tions were only entering wedges of his later; and, unlike other bene- 
factors, he did not give money to excuse his entire preoccupation in 
his own pursuits, but as an earnest of the dedication of his heart and 
hand to the interests of the sufferers, a pledge kept until the success 
he wrought and prayed ft)r was consummated." 

But for the Stearnses and their gifts to Brown it is hard 
to see how he could have gone forward in his campaigns of 
the last two years, 1858-59 ; and how^ much he valued them 
we all knew who could read Ids heart. But the extent of 
their aid to him, and the length to which they were prepared 
to go, is not generally known, although Brown knew it welh 
At my request, Mrs. Stearns has furnished me an account of 
the origin of a most characteristic paper which Brown read 
to her in the first draft, and which is this : — 

OLD brown's farewell 

To the Plymouth Rocks, Bunker Hill Monuments, Cliarter Oaks, and 
Uncle Tom's Cabins. 

He has left for Kansas ; has been trying since he came out of the 
Territory to secure an outfit, or, in other words, the means of arming 
and thoroughly equipping his regular minute-men, who are mixed up 
with the people of Kansas. And he leaves the States with a feeling 
of deepest sadness, that after having exhausted his own small means, 
and with liis family and his brave men suffered hunger, c(dd, naked- 
ness, and some of them sickness, wounds, imprisonment in irons, 
with extreme cruel treatment, and others death ; that after lying on 
the ground for months in the most sickly, unwholesome, and uncom- 
fortable places, some of the time with sick and wounded, <lestitute of 
any shelter, hunted like wolves, and sustained in part by Indians ; 
that after all this, in order to sustain a cause which every citizen of 
this "glorious republic" is under equal moral obligation to do, and 
for the neglect of which he will be held accountable by God, — a 
cause in which every man, woman, and child of the entire human 
family has a deep and awful interest, — that when no wages are 
asked or expected, he cannot secure, amid all the wealth, luxury, 



1857.] JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 509 

and extravagance of this "heaven-exalted" people, even the ne- 
cessary supplies of the common soldier. " How are the mighty 
fallen ! " 

I am destitute of horses, baggage-wagons, tents, harness, saddles, 
bridles, holsters, spurs, and belts; camp equipage, such as cooking 
and eating utensils, blankets, knapsacks, intrenching-tools, axes, 
shovels, spades, mattocks, crowbars; have not a supply of ammuni- 
tion ; have not money sufficient to pay freight and travelling expen- 
ses ; and left my family poorly supplied with common necessaiies. 

Boston, April, 1857. 

Mrs. Stearns writes me thus (April, 1885) : — 

" The newspaper reports of the' Hon. Thomas Russell's address at 
a John Brown commemoration in 1880, mentioning Mr. Stearns as 
the generous friend of John Brown, contain a statement concerniug 
myself and the ' carriage and horses,' which must be my excuse for 
relating the exact truth, both concerning the seven thousand dollars 
offered by Mr. Stearns, and how John Brown came to write his 
' Farewell to the Plymouth Rocks,' etc., which has appeared several 
times in print, but without a word of explanation. As the address 
states, Brown was keeping very quiet at Judge Russell's house in 
Boston, partly on account of a warrant issued in Kansas for his arrest 
for high treason, and partly because he was ill with fever and ague, 
a chronic form of which had been induced by his exposures in Kan- 
sas. It was in April, 1857, and a chilling easterly storm had pre- 
vailed for many days. Mr. Stearns went frequently to visit him; 
and on Saturday preceding the Sunday morning mentioned by Judge 
Russell, Captain Brown expressed a wish that I should go to see 
him, as he could not venture in such weather on a trip to Medford, — 
emphasizing the request by saying that he wished to consult me about 
a plan he had, and that I might come soon. Mr. Stearns gave me 
his message at dinner, and I drove at once to Judge Russell's house. 
As soon as my name was announced Brown appeared, and thanking 
me for the promptness of my visit, proceeded to say that he had been 
' amusing himself by preparing a little address for Theodore Parker 
to read to his congregation the next (Sunday) morning ; and that he 
would feel obliged to me for expressing my honest opinion about the 
pi'opriety of this. He then went upstairs, and returned witli a paper, 
which proved in the reading to be * Old Brown's Farewell.' The 
emphasis of his tone and manner I shall never forget, and wish I 
could picture him as he sat and read, lifting his eyes to mine now 
and then to see how it impressed me. When he finished he said : 
' Well, now, what do you think ? Shall I send it to Mr. Parker ? ' 



510 LIFE AND LETrERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

' Certainly ; by all means send it. He will appreciate every word 
you have written, for it rings the metal he likes. But I have my 
doubts about reading it to his congregation. A few of them would 
understand its significance, but the majority, I fear, would not. Send 
it to Mr. Parker, and he will do what is best about it.' In reply he 
thanked me, and said I had confirmed bis own judgment, had cleared 
his mind, and conferred the favor he desired. Then, I told him, he 
nmst give me a copy to preserve among my relics. He replied : ' I 
would give you this, but it is not fit. I had such an ague while 
writing that I could not keep my pen steady ; but you shall have a 
fair c<jpy.' In a few days he sent the copy I now have, by the hand 
of Mr. Stearns. It will be forwarded with other memorials to the 
Kansas Historical Society. The copy he gave Mr. Parker was 
found among liis papers after Parker's death. I think it stimulated 
Mr. Parker to further exertions, for he collected quite a handsome 
sum from those parishioners who u(!ver failed to respond to his 
appeal. 

"This matter being settled, Brown began talking upon the subject 
always uppermost in his thought, and, I may add, action also. Those 
who remember the power of his moral magnetism will understand 
how surely and readily he lifted his listener to the level of his own 
devotion ; so that it suddenly seemed mean and unworthy — not to 
say wicked — to be living in luxury while such a man was strug- 
gling for a few thousands to carry out his cherished plan. ' Oh,' 
said he, ' if I could have the money that is smoJced away during a 
single.day in Boston, I could strike a blow which would make sla- 
very totter from its foundations.' As he said these words, his look 
and manner left no doubt in my mind tliat he was quite capable of 
accomplishing his purpose. To-day all sane men everywhere ac- 
knowledge its truth. Well, I bade him adieu and drove home, 
thinking many thoughts, — of the power of a mighty jjurposo lodged 
in' a deeply religious soul ; of only one man with God on his side. 
The splendor of spring sunshine filled the room when I awoke the 
next morning; numberless birds, rejoicing in the returning warmth, 
filled all the air with melody; dandelions sparkled in the vivid grass; 
everything was so beautiful, that the wish rose warm in my heart to 
comfort and aid John Brown. It seemed not much to do to sell our 
estate and give the proceeds to him for his sublime purpose. What 
if another home were not as beautiful ! When Mr. Stearns awoke I 
told him my morning thoughts. Ketlecting awhile, he said : ' Per- 
haps it would not be just right to the children to do what you sug- 
gest; but I will do all I can in justice to them and you.' When 
breakfast was over, he drove to the residence of Judge Russell and 
handed Captain Brown his check for seven thousand dollars. But 



1858.] JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 511 

this fact was not known at that time, and only made public after the 
death of Mr. Stearns." 

Brown's plan for Kansas was cordially approved by Theo- 
dore Parker, who, as Mrs. Stearns says, raised some money 
in aid of it, as he afterwards did for the Virginia enterprise. 
It was in connection with the latter that Brown made and 
showed to a few friends this draft of a letter introduc- 
ing him to antislavery men, which I find among Brown's 
papers : — 

JOHN brown's description of himself (1858). 

" This will introduce a friend who visits (Worcester) in order to 
secure means to sustain and further the cause of freedom in the 
United States and in all the world. In behalf of this cause he has 
so far exhausted his own limited means as to place his wife and three 
young daughters in circumstances of privation and of dependence 
upon the generosity of their friends, who have cared for them. He has 
contributed the entire services of two strong minor sons for two years, 
and of himself for more than three years, during which time they 
have all endured great hardships, exposure of health, and other pri- 
vations. During much of the past three years he had with him in 
Kansas six sons and a son-in-law, who, together with himself, were 
all sick ; two were made prisoners, and subjected to most barbarous 
treatment ; two were severely wounded, and one murdered. During 
this time he figured with some success under the title of ' Old Brown,' 
often perilling his life in company with his sons and son-in-law, who 
all shared these trials with him. His object is commended to the 
best feelings of yourself and all who love liberty and equal rights 
in (Massachusetts), and himself indorsed as an earnest and steady- 
- minded man, and a true descendant of Peter Brown, one of the 
' Mayflower ' Pilgrims." 

Theodore Parker first met Brown at his Sunday congrega- 
tion in the Boston Music Hall in January, 1857, unless he 
had briefly encountered him at Chicago two months earlier. 
They soon became warm friends, for Brown had heard Par- 
ker preach as early as 1853, and admired his deep piety, 
popular eloquence, and devotion to liberty, although they 
were far apart in theology. In April, 1857, when " Uncle 
Sam's hounds " were said to be on Brown's track, and he 



512 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1857. 

took refuge at the house of Judge Eussell ^ in Boston, Parker 
wrote to Russell in these words : — 

Sunday Morning. 

My dear Judge, — If John Brown falls into the hands of the 
marshal from Kansas, he is sure either of the gallows or of something 
yet worse. If I were in his pcjsition, I should shoot dead any man 
who attempted to arrest me for those alleged crimes ; then I should 
be tried by a Massachusetts jury and be acquitted. 

Yours truly, 

T. P. 

P. S. I don't advise J. B. to do this, but it is what I should do. 

Parker was one ot the first in Boston to hear and entertain 
Brown's Virginia plans. Plots in some degree similar were 
familiar to him, for other enthusiasts had brought their pro- 
jects to be criticised or rejected by the clear judgment of 
the Boston radical. Like others, Parker was deeply im- 
pressed with the sagacity of many parts of Brown's scheme 
and the wildness of the rest ; but he was willing to help it 
forward for Brown's sake, and raised money in aid of it. 
After it had culminated, he wrote from Rome the week 
following Brown's execution in these words concerning 
American, Italian, and universal aifairs : — 



1 Judge Eussell gives these anecdotes of Brown during this retirement at 
his house : " He used to take out his two revolvers and repeater every 
nii^ht before going to bed, to make sure of their loads, saying, ' Here are 
eighteen lives.' To Mrs. Russell he once said, ' If you hear a noise at 
night, put the baby under the pillow. I should hate to spoil these car- 
pets, too, but you know I cannot be taken alive.' Giving an account one 
(Iny of his son Frederick's death, who was shot by Martin White, a 
Methodist preacher, Mrs. Russell broke out, ' If I were you, Mr. Brown, 
I would fight those ruffians as long as I lived.' 'That,' he replied, 'is 
not a ( 'liristian spirit. If I thought I had one bit of the spirit of revenge, 
I would never lift my hand ; I do not make war on slaveliolders, even 
when I fight them, but on slavery.' He would hold up Mrs. Russell's 
little girl, less than two years old, and tell her, ' When 1 am hung for 
treason, you can say that you used to stand on Captain Brown's hand ; ' 
and when he came to Boston two years after, in May, 18.59, on his way to 
Harper's Ferry, he brought her some cakes of maple sugar from the Adiron- 
dac home." 



1859.) JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRHiNDS. 513 

Theodore Parker to R. W. Emerson. 

Dec. 9, 1859. 

My dear Emerson, — Mr. Apthorp leaves me a comer of his 
paper, winch I ain ouly too glad to till with a word or two of greet- 
ing to you and yours. I rejoiced greatly at the brave things spoken* 
by ypu at the Fraternity Lecture, and the hearty applause I knew it 
must meet with there. Wendell Phillips and you have said about 
all the brave words that have been spoken about our friend Captain 
]3i.(,\vn — No ! J. F. Clarke preached his best sermon on that brave 
man. Had I been at home, sound and well, I think this occasion 
would have either sent me out of the country — as it has Dr. Howe — 
or else have put me in a tight place. Surely I could not have been 
quite unconcerned and safe. It might not sound well that the minis- 
ter of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church had "left for parts 
unknowu," and that " between two days," and so could not fulfil his 
obligations to lecture or preach. Here to nie " life is as tedious as 
a twice-told tale ; " it is only a strenuous idleness, — studying the 
remains of a dead people, and that too for no great purpt^se of help- 
ing such as are alive, or shall ever become so. I can d(j no better and 
no more. Here are pleasant Americans, — Mrs. Crawford, my friend 
Dr. Appleton, and above all the Storys, — most hospitable of people, 
and full of fire and wit. The Apthorps and Hunts are kind and wise 
as always, and full of noble sentiments. Of course, the great works 
of architecture, of sculpture and painting, are always here; but I con- 
fess I prefer the arts of use, which make the three millions of New 
England comfortable, intelligent, and moral, to the fine arts of 
beauty, which afford means of pleasure to a few emasculated dil- 
ettanti. None loves beauty more than I, of Nature or Art ; but 
I thank God that in the Revival of Letters our race — the 
world-conquering Teutons — turned off to Science, which seeks 
Truth and Industry, that conquers the forces of Nature and trans- 
figures Matter into- Man ; whihs the Italians took the Art of Beauty 
for their department. The Brownings are here, poet and poetess 
both, and their boy, the Only. Pleasant people are they both, with 
the greatest admiration for a certain person of Concord, to whom I 
also send my heartiest thanks and good wishes. To him and his 
long life and prosperity ! 

Theodore Parker.^ 



1 Tarker's letter to Francis Jackson on the deed and death of Brown was 
one of his last public utterances, — for he died and was buried in Florence, 
where Mrs. Browning was afterwards buried, in May, 1860. 

88 



514 LIFE AND LETTEUS OF JolIN BROWN. 



1859. 



I have spoken of the unstinted gifts of George and Mary 
Stearns, in aid of Brown and his work. Gerrit Smith, the 
baronial democrat of rural New York, was the counterpart 
of Stearns in generosity of giving. He did not finally be- 
stow so much money on Brown's enterprises as Mr. Stearns, 
but he stood ready at all times to meet responsibility, and 
to contribute when appeals were made. He was early in- 
formed of the Virginia scheme, which he did not disa})- 
prove, and to aid which he gave hundreds of dollars, and 
would have given thousands if necessa^3^ He saw lit after 
Brown's death to disguise in some ways his deep interest in 
the old hero ; but this was from no disregard of Brown's 
great qualities, which he never ceased to praise. I will not 
enter now upon the reasons for this course of Smith, and I 
have set forth the facts in their proper place. To me he 
never denied his share in the enterprise of Brown ; and he 
lived to see its grand results in the years directly following 
Brown's death. The part taken by Dr. Howe and Colonel 
Higginson in the enterprise has also been related, and need 
not be remarked upon further. Dr. Howe shrank at first 
from acknowledging his connection with Brown, and dis- 
tressed some of his friends thereby ; for he was overcome 
by the contemplation of results which he might have fore- 
seen, but did not. Higginson desired even greater publicity 
for the truth than then seemed necessary, and the records 
which he has preserved are of material value in confirming 
any authentic account of the conspiracy.^ 

1 Rrnwn's secret committee kept no records, and its members ^'cnerally 
destroyed their letters to each otlier after liis capture, so that nobody should 
he injured hy what had been written. Mrs. Gerrit Smith wrote to me in 
January, 1874, what I had heard from her son-indaw Charles Miller in No- 
■ remher, 18,59 : " Immediately after the Harper's Ferry alfair Mr. Smith 
destroyed all tlie h-tters toU(diing Brown's movements whioli he had re- 
ceived from persons in any degree privy to those movements ; and he took 
it for granted that liis own similar letters to others had been destroyed." 
In replying (Jan. 16, 1874), I said : " My first proceeding upon hearing of 
the attack at Harper's Ferry, was to go over carefully all the jiapers and 
letters then in my hands, and destroy all that could imjilicate j\Ir. Smith 
or other persons. Two months later, when John A. Andrew placed in my 
hands my own letters to Brown (with a few from other persons) whicjh Mr. 
Phillips had brought down from North Elba, after the funeral there, I 



1859.1 JOHN BROWN AND HIS FKIENDS. 515 

Although not specially a friend of John Brown before 
then, the Boston sculptor Brackett was one of those pro- 
foundly impressed by his heroism at Harper's Ferry. He 
had seen Brown once in a Boston street in 1857, and been 
attracted by the dignity of his mien. The impression then 
and afterwards made, kindled a glowing desire to perpetuate 
in marble this remarkable man. The story of his bust of 
Brown, as he told it at the time, runs thus : — 

" I could hardly sleep or eat, so absorbing was the desire that took 
possession of my mind. I had no money to make the journey to 
Virginia, and I finally went, in turn, to Dr. Howe and Wendell 
Pliillips, requesting a loan for the purpose. Neither of them con- 
sidered a marble bust of Bruwn really important, with so many other 
things to be thou2;ht of. But I said there is one man who if he can- 
not help me will listen, and perhaps give me furtherance ; so I went 
to Mr. Stearns. When I entered his counting-ioom he was just 
leavins: it ft)r Medford. In a few moments, while walking ahmg 
with him, I explained in brief why I had come. He replied: ' You 
are right : it ought to be d(jne ; but just now I am fully occupied in 
efforts to obtain funds for Brown's defence. I will menti(m the mat- 
ter to Mrs. Stearns ; come to me to-morrow morning, and you shall 
have her reply.' I did so ; when, putting the money needful into 
my hand, he said: 'Mrs. Stearns says, "Take that, and start 

went over these also carefully, before I left Boston that day, and destroyed 
what would implicate otliers. But some of the correspondence of 1858-59 
had lodged with Theodore Parker, and came back to me a year or two after 
his death ; this I did not destroy. Colonel Higginson also had retained 
some of the letters which passed through my hands, with copies of many 
that he wrote to. me or to Brown, and all these still exist. It is likely 
Mrs. Stearns has documents touching the matter. I should doubt if Dr. 
Howe had many ; but Vice-President Wilson told me, some weeks ago, 
that he had recovered an important letter of his own, which in 1859-60 
was supposed to be lost, when it went to Canada or somewhere, but has 
now got home again. It cannot, therefore, be assumed that all written 
evidence in the case is lost." In fact, I have since found several of the 
notes which passed between members of the secret committee. Here is one 
from Mr. Stearns, concerning a meeting at Theodore Parker's house, to 
consult about raising money for Brown ; — 

Boston, Sept. 29, 1858. 
My dear Friend, —Yours of yesterday is at hand. I should prefer Saturday at 
seven p. m., if that is agreeable to Mr. Parker and yourself. If you decide on that time, 
please notify Mr. Parker and Dr. Howe. If you do not write me to change the time, I 
shall be there without further notice. 



516 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

immediately;" and these are her instructions: "John Brown will 
refuse to have his bust taken ; he will say, ' All nonsense ; better give 
the money to the poor ! ' And if Mr. Brackett replies that posterity 
will want to know how he looked, he may also say, ' No consequence 
to posterity how I looked ; better give tlie money to the poor ! ' Then, 
if every argument fails to convince him, let Mr. Brackett say that 
he has come at the express M'ish and expense of Mrs. Stearns, and 
that she will be deeply disajipointed if he returns without the meas- 
urements." ' The next morning I was on my way to Virginia, and 
found on arriving at Charlestown that I had not come an hour too 
soon. The excitement over the arrival of a stranger from the North 
was intense and ridiculous. I was seized, and only escaped imprison- 
ment by appealing to Mr. Griswold, whose services had been secured 
for the defence. Through his efforts and influence the officials were 
reassured, and I was allowed to accompany him to the prison, but 
not to cross the threshold. Through the open door I saw the object 
of my pilgrimage quietly reading, but heavily loaded with chains. 
He was sitting in a chair, with both hands chained, and his feet 
chained to the floor. Only those who saw him in that miserable 
prison can have any adequate conception of the moral grandeur of 
his presence ! Everybody and everything was dwarfed in com- 
parison. He looked up from his book, when addressed by his counsel, 
and listened attentively to the request conveyed from me. Impressive 
as the scene was. I could not restrain a smile when his reply repeated 
the very words of Mrs. Stearns, — ' Nonsense! All nonsense ! Bet- 
ter give the money to the poor ! ' When Mr. Griswcdd said he must 
remember that he was becoming famous, and that posterity would 
like to see how he looked, the prophecy was again fulfilled, and the 
response came, even more emphatic, — ' No consequence to posterity/ 
how I looked ! Give the money to the poor ! ' For some time Mr. 
Griswold labored to change his purpose, but finally returned to me 
(still standing outside the docn-) and said : ' It is no use, he will not 
yield one jot. I am sorry for your disappointment, but it is useless 
arguing further.' The moment then had come for ' the last resort.' 
' Please say to him that I have come at the express wish aiid pecuni- 
ary expense of Mrs. Stearns, and that she will be deeply disappointed 
if I return without the measurements for a bust.' I watched his face 
eagerly while ]Mr. Griswold repeated to him these words, on which 
hung all my hopes. As he listened, I could see signs of interest, 
mingled with surprise, in his face ; then a grave thoughtfulness. 
Presently his hands dropped at his sides, and he seemed lost in 
thought. Then, lifting his head and straightening himself up, he 
said, with emotion : ' Anything Mr. or Mrs. Stearns desire. Take 
the measurements.' " 



1859. 



JOHN BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS. 517 



The measurements were thus secured, and the bust was 
made. It shows to what extent the artist was inspired by 
his subject, and faithfully represents the moral sublimity 
of the martyr. Charles Sumner exclaimed on seeing it, 
*' There is nothing the sun shines upon so like Michael 
Angelo's Moses ! " and the art critic Jarves said : " If in 
some future age it should be dug up, men would ask, What 
old divinity is this ? " It is an idealized portrait of Brown, 
yet recalling the features of the man, as well as his 
grand air. 

Mention must be omitted of the other friends of Brown ; 
nor need I dwell on my own friendship with him, which this 
volume sufficiently attests. My opinions were those of 
Brown, of Parker, of Emerson, Thoreau, Smith, and the 
older men who foresaw the catastrophe of American slavery. 
On the day of his death Brown penned this sentence, which 
he handed to one of his guards in the prison ; — 

Charlestown, Va., Dee. 2, 1859. 

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty 
land will never be purged away hut with Llood. I had, as I now 
think vanily, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it 
might be done. 

A week before, Parker had written from Kome to Francis 
Jackson in Boston : " A few years ago it did not seem diffi- 
cult first to check slavery, and then to end it, without any 
bloodshed. I think this cannot be done now, nor ever in 
the future. All the great charters of humanity have been 
writ in blood. I once hoped that of American Democracy 
would be engrossed in less costly ink ; but it is plain now 
that our pilgrimage must lead through a Red Sea, wherein 
many a Pharaoh will go under and perish." So it hap- 
pened ; and not only the Pharaohs, but the leaders of the 
people perished. Standing on the battle-field at Gettys- 
burg, four years after Brown's execution (ISTov. 19, 1863), 
Abraham Lincoln pronouncetl his eulogy on those who 
" gave their lives that the nation might live," calling on his 
hearers to resolve " that these dead shall not have died 
in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall have a new 



518 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [18J9. 

birth of freedom ; and that government of the people, by 
the people and for the people, shall not perish from the 
earth," — thus echoing the very words of Parker, so often 
heard in prayer and sermon from his Boston pulpit. Not 
long afterward Lincoln himself fell, the last great victim in 
the struggle, as John Brown had been its first great martyr. • 
Henceforth their names are joined and their words remem- 
bered together, — the speech of the condemned convict at 
Charlestown and that of the successful statesman at Gettys- 
burg going down to posterity as the highest range of elo- 
quence in our time. But those brave men whom Lincoln 
commemorated went forth to battle at the call of a great 
people ; they were sustained by the resources and the ardor 
of millions. I must daily remember my old friend, lonely, 
poor, persecuted, making a stand with his handful of fol- 
lowers on the outpost of Freedom, our own batteries trained 
upon him as the furious enemy swept him away in the storm 
of their vengeance ; and then I see that history will exalt 
his fame with that of the liberators of mankind, who sealed 
their testament of benefactions with the blood of noble 
hearts. 



1859.1 THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 519 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 

T T SO happens that Brown left behind him a brief Diary, 
^ serving as a key to his correspondence from the time he 
reached Michigan with his freedmen in March, 1859, to the 
final arrangements for his campaign in October. Printed 
here with notes and comments, this Diary will make plain 
what might not be so clear from his letters alone, consider- 
ing that most of Brown's own letters of this year were de- 
stroyed, either by those who received them or by members 
of the family who feared that they would compromise his 
friends. •" 

JOHN BROWX'S LATEST DIARY. 

From Detroit, March 10, 1859, to the Kennedy Farm, October 8. 

March 10. Wrote Augustus Wattles to enclose to E. and A. 
King; also wrote Frederick Douglass at Detroit; also wrote W. 
Penn Clarke, Iowa City ; also C P. Tidd. Gave Kagi $1 25. 

March \Q. Wrote J. B. Griuuell. Wrote A. Hazlett, Indiana 
P. 0., Indiana County, Pa. 

March 25. Wrote wife and children to write me, care of Ameri- 
can House, Troy, N. Y. Enclosed draft for $150. J. H. Kagi, 
Dr. : To cash for Carpenter, five dollars. Clinton Gilroy, Esq., 
New London, Conn. 

[Between the dates March 25 and June 18, Brown was at Peter- 
boro' (April 11-14), at Concord (May 7-9), at Boston (May 9-June 
3), and at North Elba (June 6-9). J 

West Andover, Ohio, June 18. Borrowed John's old compass, 
and left my own, togetlier with Gunley's book, with him at West 
Andover; also borrowed his small Jacob staif; also gave him for ex- 
penses fifteen dollars ; write him, under cover to Horace Liudsley, 
West Andover. Henry C. Carpenter. 

June 21. Gave J. H. Kagi fifty dollars for expenses at Cleve- 
land. 



520 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BKOWN. [1859. 

June 23. Wrote wife and children, and enclosed five dollars. 
Also wrote J. Ilenrie Ivagi to inquire at Bedford for letters. If 
none found, he will wait. 

June 27. Wrote J. Henrie that he will find a line at Chambers- 
burg, or three Smiths aud Anderson. 

June 21). Wrote Horace Greeley & Co., enclosing three dollars 
for " New York Tribune." Gave Watson iifty dollars for P. 

June 30. Wrote J. Henrie to write L Smith &l Sons at Harper's 
Ferry, if he needs to do so. 

July 5. Wrote John and Jason about freight, etc. ; also wife ; 
also (-liarles Blair to forward freight; also to write L Smith & Sons 
at Clianibersburg. Gave Oliver for expenses $160. Gave Stephens 
for expenses, June 17, at West Andover, $25. 

Juhj 8. Wrote John, enclosing two fifty-dollar drafts. Gave 
John Henrie forty dollars for expenses. 

July 12. Wrote Jolm Ilenrie and J. Smith. Also Jacob Frery, 
Esq., about hogs. 

July 22. Wrote John, enclosing draft for $100, with instructions. 
Also wrote Watson some instructions. Also John Hem-ie. 

July 27. Wrote wife and children for Watsou not to set out till 
we write him. 

August 2. Wrote wife for Watson and Dauphin Thompson to 
come on ; also wrote James N. Gloucester and J. Ilenrie. 

Auyust 6. Wrote J. Henrie. 

Auiju^tS. Wrote same ; also wife and children "that friends had 
arrived, and about wintering stock. Dat(^ altered to August 11. 

August 16. Wrote wife and John, Jr., for instructions, etc. 

August 17. Wrote Jason ftn- box, etc. 

August 18. Wrote F. B. S[anborn] and other friends.^ 

A ugust 24. Wrote Charles Blair. 

September 9. Wrote wife, F. B. S[anborn], Frederick Douglass, 

1 This was about the time tliat Douglass visited Brown at Chambers- 
bnrg. The purpose of Brown's letter to me was to raise three Inindied 
dollars more, since he was delayed for want of money ; and I undertook to 
raise it. On the 4th of September I liad sent him two hundred dollars, of 
which Dr. Howe gave fifty ; on tlie 14th I liad all but thirty-five dollars of 
the remaining hundred, Colonel Higginson having sent me twenty ilollars. 
I think the balance was paid by Mr. Stearns, who on the 8th of St^ptember 
had written thus to Higginson : " By reading Mr. Sanborn's note to me a 
second time, I see that the enclosed ought to have been sent to you with 
his note. Please read it and enclose again to him. I hope you will be 
able to get the fifty dollars. We have done all we could, and fall short 
another fifty as yet." The " enclosed " here was an urgent appeal from 
Chambersburg for money. 



1859. 



THE FORAY IN VIRGIISnA. 521 



James N. Gloucester, J. W. L[oguen] ; also came on the 20th of 
September. 

October 1. Wrote wife and children on various matters, — win- 
tering stock, money, etc. Also wrote (to J. B., Jr.) home, and at 
Cleveland. Also J. B. L. (September 30 and October 1). 

October 8. Wrote wife and children about Bell and Martha, and 
to write John. 

[To this paper was added the following.] 

Names of Men to Call upon for Assistance. 

Isaac J. White and William Burgess, Carlisle, Cumberland 
County, Pa. ; Joseph A. Crowley, Elias Rouse, and John Fidler, 
Bedford, Pa.; E. D. Bassett, 718 Lombard Street, Philadelphia; 
John D. ScoviUe. 

It will be seen that this Diary is incomplete, naming but 
a portion of the letters that Brown wrote in this period, 
and specifying less than half his expenses, which from 
March 10 to October 16 must have exceeded twenty -five 
hundred dollars. His sources of revenue have already been 
pointed out ; but they may be more plainly indicated, now 
that it is no longer invidious to be known as the friend of 
John Brown. When he reached Canada from Kansas with 
his rescued fugitives, his exchequer was nearly exhausted, 
although he had supplied it to some extent in Kansas by 
collecting debts and property belonging to the defunct 
National Committee, as has been mentioned.^ 

1 An evidence of this is found in the following notification to one of 
Itlr. Whitman's Kansas agents, twelve months before the attack on Har- 
per's Ferry : — 

Ottumwa, Oct. 7, 1858. 
Mr. John T. Cox. 

Sir, — You are hereby notified that I hold ctaims against the National Kansas 
Committee which are good against them and all persons whatever; and that I have 
authority from said committee to take possession, as their agent, of any sujiplies be- 
longing to said committee, wherever found. You will therefore retain in your hands all 
moneys, notes, or accounts you may now have in your custody, by direction of said 
committee or any of its agents, and hold them subject to my call or order, as I shall 
hold you responsible for them to me, as agent of said committee. 

John Brown. 
Agent National Kansas Committee. 

Of the same date is the following receipt : — 

Received as agent National Kansas Committee, of J. T. Cox, seven men's coarse cot- 
ton shirts, placed in his custody by E. B. Whitman, as agent of said committee, for sale 
or distribution. John Brown, 

Agi. Nat. Kan, Com. 



522 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

The following letter from John Brown to Kagi gives his 
own report of the success he had in raising money at Gerrit 
Smith's, and of the arrangement proposed by Mr. Smith for 
the support of the Virginia campaign of 1859 : — 

John Brown to Kagi. 

Westpokt, N. Y., April 16, 1859. 

Dear Sir, — I am here, waiting a couveyance to take iiie home ; 
have been quite prostrated ahnost the whole time since you left me 
at John's, with the difficulty in my head and ear, and with the ague 
in ci)nsequence. I am now some better. Had a good visit at 
Kochester, but did uot effect much. Had a first-rate time at Peter- 
boro' ; got of Mr. Smith aud others nearly one hundred and sixty 
dollars, and a note (which I think a good one) for two hundred and 
eighty-five dollars. Mr. S. wrote to Eastern friends to make up at 
least two tliousand dollars, saying he was in for one fifth the amount. 
I feel encouraged to believe it will soon be done, and wish you to let 
our folks all round understand how the prospects are. Still, it will 
be some days (and it may be weeks) before I can get ready to return. 
I shall not be idle. If you have found my writing-case and papers, 
please forward them without delay, by express, to Henry Thompson, 
North Elba, Essex County, N. Y. 

Y'our friend in truth, B. 

J. H. Kagi, Esq. 

Kagi replied to this on the 21st and 27th of April, while 
Brown was at ISTorth Elba ; but no answer came from Brown 
until he had been a week in Boston, after his last visit to 
Concord, May 7-9, 1859. He then wrote as follows from 
the United States Hotel in Boston, where he was then 
lodging : — 

John Brown to Kagi. 

Boston, Mass., May 16, 1859. 

Dear Sir, — I should have acknowledired the receipt of yours of 
April 21, to Henry Thompson, together with writing-case and 
papers (all safe, so far as I now see), and also yours of April 27 to 
me, l)ut for being badly down with the ague, — so much so as to 
disqualify me for everything, nearly. I have been here going on 
two weeks, and am getting better for two days past; but am very 
weak. I wish you to say to our fdks, all as soon as may be, that 
there is scarce a doubt but that all will be set right in a very few 



1859. 



THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 523 



days more, so that I can be on my M^ay back. They must none of 
them think I have been slack to try and urge forward a delicate and 
very difficult matter. I cannot now write you a long letter, being 
obliged to neglect replying to others, and also to put off some very 
important correspondence. My reception has been everywhere most 
cordial and cheering. Your friend in truth, 

John Brown. 
J. H. Kagi, Esq. 

A brief note from Mr. Stearns, May 27, 1859, has this 
passage : " We are getting on slowly, — about fifty dollars 
per day ; and if Gerrit Smith accepts, will send the old man 
off early next week." This was done, and the " accept- 
ance " of Mr. Smith was shown by his sending Brown two 
hundred dollars early in June. I have accounts of seven 
hundred and fifty dollars given by Smith to Brown during 
1859, while Mr. Stearns in that year gave him more than 
a thousand dollars. Out of a little more than four thou- 
sand dollars in money which passed through the hands of 
the secret committee in aid of his Virginia enterprise, or 
was known to them as contributed, at least thirty-eight hun- 
dred dollars were given with a clear knowledge of the use 
to which it would be put. 

When the Boston visit was over, and Brown had again 
spent a few days at North Elba, he wrote thus : — 

Keene, N. Y., June 9, 1859. 

Dear Sir, — After being delayed with sickness and other hin- 
drances, I am so far on my way back, and ht)pe to be in Ohio within 
the coming week. Will you please advise the friends all of the fact, 
and say to them that as soon as I do reacli, I will let them know 
where I will be found. I have been middling successful in my 
business. Yours in truth, 

John Brown. 

J. Henrie, Esq. 

Before leaving Westport, June 10, Brown probably re- 
ceived a letter from Gerrit Smith, mentioned in the letter 
of June 4, which is given below with corrections from 
the copy published soon after Brown's capture, that first 
directed attention toward Mr. Smith as one of Brown's 
friends in his last campaign : — 



524 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Peterboro', June 4, 1859. 
Captain John Brown. 

My dear Friend, — I wrote you a week as^o, directing my letter 
to the c-are of Mr. Stearns. He replied, iuforuiing me that he had 
forwarded it to Westport ; but as Mr. Morton received last evening a 
letter from Mr. Sanborn, Sivying your address would be your sou's 
home, —namely, West Audover, — I therefore wTite you without de- 
lay, and direct youv letter to your son. I have done what I could thus 
far for Kansas, and what I could to keep you at your Kansas work. 
Losses by indorsement and otherwise have brought me under heavy 
embarrassment the last two years, but I must, nevertheless, continue 
to do, ill order to keep you at your Kansas work. I send you here- 
with my draft for two hundred dollars. Let me hear from you 
on tlie receipt of this letter. You live in our liearts, and our prayer 
to God is that you may have strength to continue in your Kansas 
work. My wife joins me in aftectiouate regard to you, dear John, 
whom we both hold in very liigh esteem. I suppose you put the 
Whitman note into Mr. Stearns's hands. It will be a great shame if 
Mr. Whitman does not pay it. What a noble man is Mr. Stearns! ^ 
How liberally he has contributed to keep you in your Kansas work ! 

Your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 

On the same day that Mr. Smith sent the letter last 
cited, I wrote to Higginson from Concord : — 

June 4, 1 8.59. 
Brown has set out on his expedition, having got some eight hun- 
dred dollars from all sources except from Mr. Stearus, and from him 

1 To those who could read between the lines, this letter disclosed the 
whole methoil of the secret eonimittee. No one of them might know at any 
given time where Brown was, but some other was sure to know, — and in 
this one note four persons are nametl who might be at any time in commu- 
nication with Brown wherever he was, — Oeorge L. Stearns, F.dwiu Jlor- 
ton, F. B. Sanliorn, and Mr. Smith himself. The phrase "Kansas work" 
misled none of tliese persons, who all knew that Brown had finally left 
Kansas and was to o]>erate henceforth in the slave States. The hundred 
dollars given by Mr. Smith April 14, added to the two hundred named in 
this letter, and the note of E. B. Whitman, of Kansas, which Bixiwn re- 
ceived from Mr. Smith, make up five hundred and eighty-five dollars, or 
more than one-fifth of the two thousand dollars which he told Bnnvn he 
would help his "Eastern friends" raise. Tlio.se friends were Stearns, 
Howe, Higginsc^n, and Sanlwrn, — for Parker was tlien in Europe, and 
vmable to contribute. 



1859. 



THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 525 



the balance of two thousand dollars ; Mr. S being a man who, 

" having put his hand to the plow, turneth not back." Brown left 
Boston for Springfield and New York on Wednesday morning at 8.30, 
and Mr. Stearns has probably gone to New York to-day, to make final 
arrangements for him. Brown means to be on the ground as soon 
as he can, perhaps so as to begin by the 4th of July. He could 
not say where he should be for a few weeks, but letters are addressed 
to him, under cover to his son John, Jr., at West Audover, Ohio. 
This point is not far froni where Brown will begin, and his son will 
communicate with him. Two of his sons will go with him. He is 
desirous of getting some one to go to Canada, and collect recruits for 
him among the fugitives, — with Harriet Tubman or alone, as the 
case may be. 

This letter shows I had then no thought that the attack 
■would be made at Harper's Ferry ; nor had Mr. Stearns, to 
whom I was in the habit of talking or writing about this 
matter every few days. I have no doubt he knew as much 
as I did about the general plan, while Mr. Smith knew 
more. On the 6th of October — ten days before the attack 
was made — I wrote to Higginson, " The three hundred 
dollars desired has been made up and received. Four or 
five men will be on the ground next week, from these 
regions and elsewhere." These facts were all known to 
Mr. Stearns, who within a fortnight of the outbreak was in 
consultation with Mr. Lewds Hayden, and other colored men 
of Boston, about forwarding recruits to Brown. I think he 
paid some of the expenses of these recruits, as Merriam 
certainly did. 

As Brown was setting forth for Virginia, he wrote 
thus : — 

John Broicn to his Family. 

United States Hotel, Boston, May 13, 1859. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — I wrote you from Troy last 
week, saying I had sent on the balance of articles I intended to buy, 
and that it might be well to call on James A. Allen, Westport, for 
them soon. I would now say, if you are not in a strait for tliem 
it may be as well to defer sending for a little, as I expect soon to be 
at home again, and may in that case be able to save considerable 
expense. They are all directed to John Brown at Westport. I feel 
now very confident of ultimate success, but have to be patient, and I 



626 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

have the ague to hinder me some lately. May God be the portion 

of you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Boston, Mass., May 19, 1859. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — I intend to be with you 
again next week ; but as I may fail to bring it about, I now write to 
say to Watson and Oliver that I think it quite certain that I sliall 
very soon be off for the soutliwest, so that they may (I tliink safely) 
calculate their business accordingly. I shall be glad to have my 
summer clothing put in order, so far as it can be done comfortably ; 
I have had no shake now for five days, and am getting quite smart 
again, and my hearing improves. You all may as well be still about 
ray movements. God bless you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Akron, Ohio, June 23, 1859. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — My best wish for you all 
is that you may truly love God and his commandments. We 
found all well at West Andover, and all middling well here. I have 
the ague some yet. I sent a calf-skin from Troy by express, directed 
to Watson Brown, North Elba, to go by stage from Westport.. I 
now enclose five dollars to help you further about getting up a good 
loom. We start for the Ohio River to-day. Write me under cover 
to John at West Andover, for the present. The frost has been far 
more destructive in Western New York and in Ohio than it was 
in Essex County. Farmers here are mowing the finest-looking 
wheat I ever saw, for fodder only. Jason has been quite a sufferer. 
May God abundantly bless and keep you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

John Brown to J. H. Kagi. 

Chambersburg, Penn., June 30, 1859. 
John Henrie, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — We leave here to-day for Harper's Ferry, via 
Hagerstown. When you get there you had best look on the hotel 
register for I. Smith & Sons, without making much inquiry. We 
shall be looking for cheap lands near the railroad'in all probability. 
You can write I. Smith & Sons, at Harper's Ferry, should you need 
to do so. Yours, in truth, 

L Smith [John Brown]. 



185).] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 527 

The " three Smiths and Anderson," mentioned by Brown 
in his diary for June 27, were himself (" Isaac Smith "), his 
two sons, Owen ('* Watson Smith "), and Oliver (" Oliver 
Smith "), and his henchman, Jerry Anderson, who all ap- 
peared at Hagerstown June 30, and spent that night at a 
tavern there. July 3, these four were at Harper's Ferry, 
where Brown's lieutenant Cook had been living for some 
months ; and on the 4th they strolled up the river road on 
the Maryland side toward the house of J. C. Unseld, a 
Maryland slaveliolder, living on a mountain path a mile 
northwest of the Ferry. Early that forenoon Unseld riding 
down to the Ferry met them strolling along the edge of the 
mountain which here overlooks the Potomac. " Well, gen- 
tlemen," said the planter, " I suppose you are out hunting 
minerals, — gold and silver, perhaps ? " " iSTo," said Brown, 
" we want to buy land ; we have a little money, and want to 
make it go as far as we can. How much is land worth an acre 
here ? " Being told that it ranged from fifteen to thirty 
dollars in that neighborhood, he said, " That is high ; I 
thought 1 could buy for a dollar or two an acre." " No," 
said the Mary lander, '^ not here ; if you expect to get land 
for that price, you '11 have to go farther west, — to Kansas, 
or some of those Territories where there is Congress land. 
Where are you from ? " " The northern part of New York 
State." " What have you followed there ? " " Farming," 
said Brown ; but the frost had been so heavy of late years 
it had cut off their crops, they could not make anything 
there, so he had sold out, and thought they would come 
farther south and try it awhile. 

Having thus satisfied a natural curiosity, Unseld rode on ; 
but returning some hours afterward, he again met Smith 
and his young men not far from the same place. " I have 
been looking round your country up here," said he, " and it 
is a very fine country, — a pleasant place, a fine view. The 
land is much better than I expected to find it : your crops 
are pretty good." As he said this he pointed to where the 
men had -ijeen cutting grain, — some white men and some 
negroes at work in the fields, as the custom is there ; for in 
Washington County there were few slaves even then, and 
most of the field work was done by whites or free-colored 



528 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

men. Brown then asked if any farm in the neighborhood 
was for sale. " Yes, there is a farm four miles up the road 
here, toward Boonsborough, owned by the heirs of Dr. Booth 
Kennedy ; you can buy that." " Can I rent it ? " said 
Brown ; then turning to his companions he said : " I think 
we had better rent awhile, until we get better acquainted, 
so that they cannot take advantage of us in the purcliase of 
land." To this they appeared to assent, and Mr. Unseld 
then said : " Perhaps you can rent the Kennedy farm ; it is 
for sale I know." Brown then turned to his sons and said : 
" Boys, as you are not very well, you had better go back and 
tell the landlord at Sandy Hook that Oliver and I shall not 
be there to dinner, but will go on up and see the Kennedy 
place. However, you can do as you please." Watson Brown 
looked at Anderson, and then said, " We will go with you." 
" Well," said the friendly Marylauder, " if you will go on 
with me up to my house, I can then point you the road ex- 
actly." Arrived there he invited them to take dinner, for 
by this time it was nearly noon. They thanked him, but 
declined ; nor would they accept an invitation to " drink 
something." "Well," said Unseld, " if you must go on, just 
follow up this road along the foot of the mountain ; it is 
shady and pleasant, and you will come out at a church up 
here about three miles. Then you can see the Kennedy 
house by looking from that church up the road that leads to 
Boonsborough, or you can go right across and get into the 
county road, and follow that up." Brown sat and talked 
with Unseld for a while, who asked him " what he expected 
to follow, up yonder at Kennedy's ? " adding that Brown 
'' could not more than make a living there." " Well," said 
Brown, "■ my business has been buying up fat cattle and 
driving them on to the State of New York, and we expect 
to engage in that again." Three days later, Unseld, again 
jogging to or from the Ferry, again met the gray-bearded 
rustic, who said : " I think that place will suit me ; now 
just give me a description where I can find the widow Ken- 
nedy and the administrator," wliich Unseld did. A few 
days after, he once more met the new-comer, and found Mr. 
Smith had rented the two houses on the Kennedy farm. — 
the farm-house, about three hundred yards from the public 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 529 

road on the west side, where, as Unseld thought, " it makes 
a very pretty show for a small house," and " the cabin," 
which stood about as far from the road on the east side, 
" hidden by shrubbery in the summer season, pretty mucli."^ 
For the two houses, pasture for a cow and horse, and lire- 
wood, from July till March, Brown paid thirty -five dollars, 
as he took pains to tell Unseld, showing him the receipt of 
the widow Kennedy. 

How was it possible to mistrust a plain Yankee farmer 
and cattle-drover who talked in that way, and had no con- 
cealments, no tricks, and no airs ? Evidently the IMary- 
lander did not once mistrust him, though he rode up to the 
Kennedy farm nearly every week from the middle of July 
till the first of October. " I just went up to talk to the old 
man," said he; "but sometimes, at the request of others, 
on business about selling him some horses or cows. He was 
in my yard frequently, — perhaps four or five times. I 
would always ask him in, but he would never go in, and of 
course I would not go in his house. He often invited me 
in ; indeed, nearly every time I went there he asked me to go 
in, and remarked to me frequently, ' We have no chairs for 
you to sit on, but we have trunks and boxes.' I declined 
going in, but sat on my horse and chatted with him." Be- 
fore the 20th of July he saw there " two females," who were 
Martha, the wife of Oliver Brown, and Anne, the eldest un- 
married sister of Oliver, then a girl of not quite sixteen 
years. " Twice I went there," says Unseld, " and found 
none of the men, but the two ladies ; and I sat there on my 
YioTse, — there was a high porch on the house, and I could 
sit there and chat with them ; and then I rode olf and left 
them. They told me there were none of the men at home, 
but did not tell me where they were. One time I went 
there and inquired for them, and one of the females an- 
swered me, ' They are across there at the cabin ; you had 
better ride over and see them.' I replied it did not make 

1 It was at this cabin (since torn down) that Brown kept his boxes of 
rifles and pistols, after thej' reached him from Ohio. The pikes from 
Connecticut, a thousand in number, were stored in the loft or attic of the 
farm-house, where Brown and his family lived. 

34 



530 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

anj'" difference ; I would not bother them ; and I rode back 
home." ^ 

John Bi'own to his Family. 

Chambersburg, Penn., July 22, 1859. 

Dear Friends, all, — Oliver, Martha, and Anne all got on safe 
on Saturday of the week they set out. If W. and D. set out' in ten 
days or a week after getting this, they will be quite in time. All 
well. When you write, direct to I. Smith & Sons, Chambersburg, 
Penu. Your friend, 

Isaac Smith. 

Chambersburg, Penn., July 27, 1859. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — I write to say that we are 
all well, and that I think Watson and D. had not best set out until 
we write again, and not until sufficient hay has been secured to win- 
ter all the stock well. To be buying hay in the spring or last of the 
winter is ruinous, and there is no prospect 6f our getting our freight 
on so as to be ready to go to work under some time yet. We will give 
you timely notice. When you write, enclose first in a small enve- 
lope, put a stamp on it, seal it, and direct it to I. Smith & Sons, 
Harper's Ferry, Va. ; then enclose it under a stamped envelope, 
which direct to John Henrie, Chambersburg, Penn. I need not say, 
do all your directing and sealing at home, and not at the post-office. 
Your affectionate husband and father, 

I. Smith. 

Chambersburg, Penn., Aug. 2, 1859. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — If Watson and D. should 
set out soon after getting this, it may be well. They will avoid say- 
ing anything on the road about North Elba. It will be quite as well 
to say they are from Essex County ; and need not say anything about 
it unless they are questioned, when they had better say as alxive. 
Persons who do not talk much are seldom questioned much. They 
should buy through tickets at Troy or at New York for Baltimore, 

^ Tliis gossip pictures, as no description could, the quiet and drowsiness 
of this woodland, primitive, easy-going, hard-living population, auiid the 
hills and mountains of Maryland, where John Brown spent the last three 
months of his free life, and gathered his forces for the battle in wliieh he 
fell. It is a region of home-keeping, honest, dull country people ; and so 
completely did Brown make himself one of its denizens, that he was accepted 
as part and parcel of it, even when plotting his most audacious strokes. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 531 

where they will get tickets for Harper's Ferry ; and there, by inquir- 
ing of Mr. Michael Ault, who keeps the toll-bridge over which they 
have to pass, they can find I. Smith on the Kennedy farm. Watson 
M'ill be a son and D. his brother-in-law Thompson, if any inquiry is 
made at the bridge or elsewhere. They had better not bring trunks- 
We are all well. May God abundantly bless and keep you all ! 
Your affectionate husband and father. 

Brown had not been living at the Kennedy farm many- 
weeks when a touching incident occurred, which is thus 
related by his daughter Anne, who was then his housekeeper : 

" One day, a short time after I went down there, father was sitting 
at the table writing, I was near by sewing (he and I being alone in 
the room), when two little wrens that had a nest under the porch 
came flying in at the door, fluttering and twittering ; then flew back 
to their nest and again to us several times, seemingly trying to attract 
our attention. Tliey appeared to be in great distress. I asked 
father what he thought was the matter witli the little birds. He 
asked if I had ever seen them act so before ; I told him no. ' Then 
let us go and see,' he said. We went out and found that a snake 
had crawled up the post and was just ready to devour the little ones 
in the nest. Father killed the snake ; and then the old birds sat on 
the railing and sang as if they would burst. It seemed as if they 
were trying to express their joy and gratitude to him for saving their 
little ones. After we went back into the room, he said he tliought 
it very strange the way the birds asked him to help them, and asked 
if I thought it an omen of his success. He seemed very much im- 
pressed with that idea. I do not think he was superstitious ; but you 
know he always tliought and felt that God called him to that work ; 
and seemed to place himself, or rather to imagine liimself, in the po- 
sition of the figiu'e in the old seal of Virginia, with the tyrant under 
her foot." 

Chambersburg, Penn., Aug. 16, 1859. 
Dear Wife axd Children, all, — I left all well at home yes- 
terday but Martha, who was complaining a little. Am in hopes 
notliing serious is the matter. I will only now say I am getting 
along as well, perhaps, all things considered, as I ouglit to expect. 
We all want to hear from you ; but we do not want you all to write, 
and you need only say all is well, or otherwise, as the case ma/ be. 
When you write, enclose in a small envelope such as I now send, 
seal it, and write on it no other directions than I. Smith & Sons. 



532 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Enclose that in a stamped envelope and direct it to John Henrie, 
Esq., of Chambersburg, Franklin County, Penn., who will send it 
to us. Affectionately yours, I. S. 

Chambersburg, Pa., Sept. 8, 1859. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — I write to say that we are 
all well, and are getting along as well as we could reasonably expect. 
It now appears likely that Martha and Anne will be on their way 
home in the course of this month, but they may be detained to a little 
later period. I do not know what to advise about fattening the old 
spotted cow, as much will depend on what you have to feed her with ; 
whether your heifers will come in or not next spring ; also upon her 
present condition. You must exercise the best judgment you have 
in the matter, as I know but little about your crops. I should like 
to know more as soon as I can. I am now in hopes of being able to 
send you something in the way of help before long. May God abun- 
dantly bless you all ! Ellen, I want you to be very good. 

Your affectionate husband and father, I. S- 

Sept. 9. Bell's letter of 80th August to Watson is received. 
Sept. 20, 1859. All well. Girls will probably start for home soon. 
Yours ever, T. S. 

Chambersburg, Pa., Oct. 8, 1859. 
Dear Wife and Children, all, — Oliver returned safe on 
Wednesday of this week. I want Bell and Martha both to feel that 
they may have a home with you until we return. We shall do all 
in our power to provide for the wants of the whole as one family till 
that time. If Martlia and Anne have any money left after getting 
home, I wish it to be used to make all as comfortable as may be for 
tlie present. All are in usually good liealth. I expect John will 
•send you some assistance soon. Write him all you want to say to us. 
God bless you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

From his rustic retreat Brown thus wrote to his comrades 
and his son : — 

To Kagi, at Cham^hersJiurg. 

(About July 12, 1859.) 
" Look for letters directed to John Henrie at Chambersburg. In- 
quire for letters at Chambersburg for I. Smith & Sons, and write 
them at Harper's Ferry as soon as any does come.^ See Mr. Henry 

1 See the Diary for July 12. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 533 

Watson at Chambersburg, and find out if the ' Tribune ' comes on. 
Have Mr. Watson and his reliable friends get ready to receive com- 
pany. Get Mr. Watson to make you acquainted with his reliable 
friends, but do not appear to be any wise thick with them, and do 
not often be seen with any such man. Get Mr. Watson, if he can, 
to find out a trusty man or men to stop with at Hagerstown (if any 
such there be), as Mr. Thomas Henry has gone from there. Write 
Tidd to come to Chambersburg, by Pittsburg and Harrisburg, at 
once. He can stop off the Pittsburg road at Hudson, and go to 
Jason's for his trunk. Write Carpenter and Hazlett that we are all 
well, right, and ready as soon as we can get our boarding-house 
fixed, when we will write them to come on, and by what route. I 
will pay Hazlett the money he advanced to Anderson for expenses 
travelling. Find yourself a comfortable, cheap boarding-house at 
once. Write I. Smith & Sons, at Harper's Ferry. Inquire after 
your four Cleveland friends, and have them come on to Chambers- 
burg if they are on the way ; if not on the road, have them wait till 
we are better prepared. Be careful what you write to all persons. 
Do not send or bring any more persons here until we advise you of 
our readiness to board them." 

At this time Kagi was stationed at Chambersburg to re- 
ceive and forward letters, arms, men, etc.. He replied to 
the above letter, and to other messages of Brown, on Mon- 
day, July 18, and again July 22, enclosing letters from 
Charles Blair and from John Brown, Jr., who forwarded the 
rifles, etc., from West Andover, Ohio, on the 22d, 2oth, and 
27th of July, to "Isaac Smith & Sons," at Chambersburg. 

Kagi writes thus : — 

July 18. 

I wrote to Tidd one week ago to-day, several days before receiving 
your letter directing me to do so, and enclosing letter to H. Lindsley, 
which I forwarded by first mail. None of your things have yet ar- 
rived. The railroad from Harrisburg here does no freight business 
itself, that all being done by a number of forwarding houses, which 
run private freight cars. I have requested each of these (there are 
six or eight of them) to give me notice of the arrival of anything 
for you. 

Chambersburg, Friday, July 22. 

I received the within, and another for Oliver, to-day. I thought 
best not to send the other ; it is from his wife. There are other 
reasons, which I need not name now. Have here no other letters 
from any one. J- Henrie. 



534^ LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

" The within " was this note from John Brown, Jr., writ- 
ing under the name of "John Smith," whose father was 
" Isaac " or " Squire " Smith : — 

Ashtabula, Ashtabula County, Ohio, Monday, July 18, 1859. 

Dear Father, — Yours, dated at Chaiiibersburg, Pennsylvania, 
July 5, and mailed at Troy, New York, July 7, and also yours of the 
8th, with enclosed drafts i\)r one hundred dollars, I received in due 
season ; am .here to-day to get drafts cashed. Have now got all my 
business so ajrauged that I can devote my time, for the present, en- 
tirely to any business you may see fit to intrust me ; shall immedi- 
ately ship your freight, as you directed, most probably by canal, from 
Hartstown (formerly Hart's Cross Roads, Crawford County), to the 
river at Rochester, Pennsylvania (formerly Beaver), thence by rail- 
road ida Pittsburg, etc., as you directed. Shall hold myself in readi- 
ness to go north on any business you choose to direct or confide in 
my hands. All well; have two or three letters from N. E., which I 
wiU forward to J. H. [Kagi]. 

In haste, your affectionate son, 

John Smith. 

"N. E." was New England, and the letters were from 
our secret committee, or some members of it. 

In a note to John Brown, written August 27. Kagi says : 
" I to-day received the enclosed letter and check [fifty dol- 
lars]." This was the money sent on by Dr. Howe about 
August 25, and the letter was this : — 

Dear Friend, — I begin the investment with fifty dollars, and 
will try to do more through friends. Our friend from Concord called 
with your note. Doctor. 

I was the " friend from Concord," and on the 27th-30th 
August I wrote to Brown from Springfield, thus : — 

Dear Friend, — Yours of the 18th has been received and com- 
municated. S. G. Howe has sent you fifty dollars in a draft on New 
York, and I am expecting to get more from other sources (perhaps 
some here), and will make up to you the three hundred dollars, if 
I can, as soon as I can ; but I can give nothing myself just now, 
being already in debt. I hear with great pleasure what you say of 
the success of the business, and hope nothing will occur to thwart it. 
Your son Jolm was in Boston a week or two since. I tried to find 



1859.1 



THE FOKAY EN VIRGINIA. 635 



him, but did not ; and being away from Concord, he did not come 
to see me. He saw S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Wendell Phil- 
lips, Francis Jackson, etc. ; and everybody liked him. I am very 
sorry I could not see him. All your Boston friends are well. The- 
odore Parker is in Switzerland, much better, it is thought, than when 
he left home. Henry Sterns, of Springfield, is dead. 

July 28. 

I reached here yesterday and have seen few people as yet. Here 
I expect letters from those to whom I have written. I conclude that 
your operations will not be delayed if the money reaches you in course 
of the next fortnight, if you are sure of having it then. I cannot 
certainly promise that you will, but I think so. Harriet Tubman 
is probably in New Bedford, sick. She has stayed here in N. E. a 
long time, and been a kind of missionary. Your friends in C. are 
all well ; I go back there in a week. God prosper you in all your 
works ! I shall write again soon. 

Yours ever, F. 

Springfield, August 30, 1859. 

Dear Friend, — I enclose you a draft for fifty dollars on New 
York, bought with money sent by Mrs. Russell. Dr. Howe has 
already sent you fifty dollars, and G. S., of P.,^ writes me has sent, 
or will send, one hundred dollars. The remainder will perhaps 
come more slowly ; but I think it will come. I have sent your letter 
to Gerrit Smith. Please acknowledge the receipt of these sums. 

Yours ever, F. 

John Broivn to his son John. 

Chambersburg, Pa., August, ]859. 
Dear Friend, — I forgot to say yesterday that your shipments of 
freight are received all in apparent safety ; but the bills are very 
high, and I begin to be apprehensive of getting into a tight spot for 
want of a little more funds, notwithstanding my anxiety to make my 
money hold out. As it will cost no more expense for you to solicit 
for me a little more assistance while attending to your other business, 
say two or three hundred dollars in New York, — drafts payable to 
the order of I. Smith & Sons, — will you not sound my Eastern or 
Western friends in regard to it ? It was impossible for me to foresee 
the exact amount I should be obliged to pay out for everything. Now 
that arrangements are so nearly completed, I begin to feel almost cer- 
tain that I can squeeze through with that amount. All my accounts 

1 Gerrit Smith, of Peterlioro'. 



536 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

are squared up to the present time ; but how I can keep iny little 
wheels in motion for a few days more I am beginning to feel at a 
loss. It is terribly humiliating to me to begin soliciting of friends 
again; but as the harvest opens before me with increasing encourage- 
ments, I may not allow a feeling of delicacy to deter me from asking 
the little further aid I expect to need. What I must have to carry 
me through I shall need within a very few days, if I am obliged to 
call direct for further help ; so you will please expect something quite 
definite very soon. I have endeavored to economize in every possible 
way; and I will not ask for a dollar imtil I am driven to do so. I 
have a trifle over one hundred and eighty dollars on hand, but am 
afraid I cannot possible make it reach. I am highly gratified with 
all our arrangements up to the present time, and feel certain that no 
time has yet been lost. One freight is principally here, but will have 
to go a little further. Our hands, so far, are coming forward promptly, 
and better tlian I expected, as we have called on them. We have to 
move with all caution. 

As will appear by the next series of letters, John Brown, 
Jr., undertook to organize forces in Canada after forwarding 
to his father the arms stored in Ohio : — 

Syiiacuse, N. Y., Thursday, Aug. 11, 1859. 
Friend J. Henrie, — Day before yesterday I reached Rochester. 
Found our Rochester friend' absent at Niagara Falls. Yesterday 
he returned, and I spent remainder of day and evening with him and 
Mr. E. Morton, with whom friend Isaac [John Brown] is acquainted. 
The friend at Rochester will set out to make you a visit in a few days. 
He will be accompanied by that "other young man," and also, if it 
can be brouglit around, by the woman ^ that the Syracuse friend could 
tell me of. The son will probably remain back for awhile. I gave 
'' Fred'k " ^ twenty-two dollars to defray expenses. If alive and well, 
you will see him ere long. I found him in rather low spirits ; left 
him in high. Accidentally met at Rochester Mr. E. Morton. He 
was much pleased to hear from you ; was anxious for a copy of that 
letter of instructions to show our friend at " Pr." ^ [Pf^terboro'], who, 
Mr. M. says, has his whole soul absorbed in this matter. I have 
just made him a copy and mailed him at R., where he expects to be 
for two or three weeks. He wished me to say to you that he had 

1 F. Douglass. The " woman " spoken of was Harriet Tubman, a Mary- 
land Deborah. "Fred'k" is also Douglass. "Our friend at Pr." was 
Geirit Smith, in whose family, it will he remembered, Edwin Morton was 
living ; but he happened then to be visiting in Rochester. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 537 

reliable information that a certain noted colonel, whose name you 
are all acquainted with, is now in Italy. By the way, the impression 
prevails generally that a certain acquaintance of ours headed the 
party that visited St. J. in Missouri lately. Of course I don't try to 
deny that which bears such earmarks. Came on here this morning. 
Found Loguen gone to Boston, Mass., and also said woman. As 
T. does not know personally those persons in Canada to whom it is 
necessary to have letters of introduction, he thinks I had better get 
him to go with me there. I have made up my mind, notwithstand- 
ing the extra expense, to go on to Boston. Loguen is expecting to 
visit Canada soon, anyway, and his wife thinks would contrive to go 
immediately. I think for other reasons, also, I had better go on to 
B(jston. Morton says our particular friend Mr. Sanborn, in that 
city, is especially anxious to hear from you ; has his heart and hand 
both engaged in the cause. Shall try and find him. Our Rochester 
friend thinks the woman whom I shall see in Boston, " whose ser- 
vices might prove invaluable," had better be helped on. I leave 
this evening on the 11.35 train from here; shall return as soon as 
possible to make my visit at Chatham. Will write you often. So 
far, all is well. Keep me advised as far as consistent. 

Fraternally yours, 

John Smith. 

Syracuse, N. Y., Thursday, Aug. 18, 1859. 
Friend Henrie, — I am here to-day, so far on my way back 
from Boston, whither I went on Friday last. Found our Syracuse 
friend tliere, but his engagements were such that he could not pos- 
sibly leave until yesterday morning. We reached here about twelve 
o'clock last night. While in Boston I improved the time in making 
the acquaintance of those stanch friends of our friend Isaac. First 
called on Dr. Howe, who, though I had no letter of introduction, 
received me most cordially. He gave me a letter to the friend wlio 
does business on Milk Street [Mr. Stearns]. Went with him to his 
home in Medford, and took dinner. The last word he said to me 
was, " Tell friend Isaac that we have the fullest confidence in his 
endeavor, whatever may be the result." I have met no man on 
whom I think more implicit reliance may be placed. He views mat- 
ters from the standpoints of reason and principle, and I think his 
firmness is unshakable. The friend at Concord [F. B. Sanborn] I 
did not see ; he was absent from home. The others here will, how- 
ever, communicate with him. They were all, in short, very much 
gratified, and have had their faith and hopes much strengthened. 
Found a number of earnest and warm friends, whose sympathies and 
theories do not exactly harmonize; but in spite of themselves their 



538 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

hearts will lead their heads. Our Bostou friends thought it better 
that our old friend from Syracuse [J. W. Loguen] should accompany 
me in my journey northward. I shall leave in an hour or two for 
Rochester, where I will finish this letter. I am very glail I went to 
Boston, as all the friends were of the opinion that our friend Isaac 
was in another part of the world, if not in another sphere. Our 
cause is their cause, in the fullest sense of the word. 

Going on to Eochester, the home of Douglass, John 
Brown, Jr., writes from there, Aug. 17, 1859, to Kagi, 
saying : — 

" On my way up to our friend's [F. Douglass's] house, T met his 
son Lewis, who informs me that his father left here on Tuesday, 
August 16, via New York and Philadelphia, to make you a visit." 

The exact date of Douglass's visit to Brown at Chamhers- 
burg seems to have been Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 
August 19-21. He was at Mrs. Gloucester's in Brooklyn 
August 18, and carried to Brown from her the following 

letter : — 

BnooKLYN, Aug. 18, 1859. 

Esteemed Friend, — I gladly avail myself of the opportunity 
afforded by our friend ]\Ir. F. Douglass, who has just called upon us 
previous to his visit to you, to enclose to you for the cause in which 
you are such a zealous laborer a small amount, which please accept 
with my most ardent wishes for its and your benefit. The visit of our 
mutual friend Douglass has somewhat revived my rather drooping 
spirits in the cause; but seeing such ambition and enterprise in him, 
I am again encouraged. With best wishes for your welfare and 
prosperity, and the good of your cause, I subscribe myself 
Your sincere friend, 

Mrs. E. A. Gloucester. 

What took place during the stay of Douglass and Brown 
in Chambersburg has thus been narrated by Douglass, 
omitting some particulars not essential to the story : — 

JOHN BROWN IN CONFERENCE WITH DOUGLASS. 

" At my house John Brown had made the acquaintance of a col- 
ored man, who called himself by different names, — sometimes 
' Emperor,' at other times ' Shields Green,' — a fugitive slave 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 539 

who had made his escape from Charleston, S. C. He was a man 
of few words (and his language was singularly broken), but of 
courage" and self-respect. Brown saw at once what stuff Green was 
made of, and confided to him his plans and purposes. Green easily- 
believed in Brown, and promised to go with him whenever he should 
be ready to move. About nine weeks before the raid on Harper's 
Ferry, Brown wrote to me that a beginning would soon be made, 
and that before going forward he wanted to see me ; he appointed an 
old stone-quarry near Chambersburg as our place of meetiug. Mr. 
Kagi, his secretary, would be there, and they wished me to bring 
any money I could command and Shields Green along with me. He 
said that his ' mining-tools ' and stores were then at Chambersburg, 
and that he would be there to remove them. I obeyed the summons, 
taking Shields ; we passed through New York, where we called upon 
the Eev. James Gloucester and his wife, and told them where we were 
going, and that our old friend needed money. Mrs. Gloucester gave 
me teu dcdlars for John Brown, with her best wishes. When I 
reached Chambersburg surprise was expressed that I should come 
there unannounced ; and I was pressed to make a speech, which I 
readily did. Meanwhile I called upon Mr. Henry Watson, a simple- 
minded and warm-hearted man, to whom Brown had imparted the 
secret of my visit, to show me the appointed rendezvous. Watson 
was busy in his barber's-shop, but he dropped all and put me on 
the riijht track. I approached the old quarry cautiously, for Brown 
was generally well armed and regarded strangers with suspicion. 
He was under the ban of the Government, and heavy rewards were 
offered for his arrest. He was passing under the name of Isaac 
Smith. As I came near, he regarded me suspiciously ; but he soon 
recognized me, and received me cordially. He had in his hand a 
fishing-tackle, with wdiich he had apparently been fishing in a 
stream hard by ; but I saw no fish . fishing was simply a disguise, 
and certainly a good one. He looked every way like a man of the 
neighborhood, and as much at home as any of the farmers around 
there. His hat was old and storm-beaten, and his clothing about 
the color of the stone-quarry itself. His fece wore an anxious ex- 
pression, and he was nmch worn by thought and exposure. I felt 
that I was on a dangerous mission, and was as little desirous of dis- 
covery as himself. 

" Captain Brown, Kagi, Shields Green, and myself sat down 
among the rocks, and talked over the enterprise about to be under- 
taken. The taking of Harper's Ferry, of which Brown had merely 
hinted before, was now declared his settled purpose, and he wanted 
to know what I thought of it. I at once opposed it with all the 
arguments at my command. To me, such a measure would be fatal 



540 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

to runuiug oflf slaves (the original plan), and fatal to all engaged. It 
would be an attack on the Federal Government, and would array the 
whole country against us. Captain Brown did most t)f the talking 
on the other side. He did not at all object to rousing the nation ; it 
seemed to him that something startling was needed. He had com- 
pletely renounced his old plan, and thonght that the capture of Har- 
per's Ferry wonld serve as notice to the slaves that their friends had 
come, and as a trumpet to rally them to his standard. I was no match 
for him in such matters, but I told him that all his arguments, and all 
his descriptions of the place convinced me that he was going into a 
perfect steel-trap, and that once in, he would never get out alive ; he 
would be surrounded at once, and escape would be impossible. He 
was not to be shaken, but treated my views respectfully, replying 
that even if surrounded, he would find means to cut his way out. 
But that wonld not be forced upon him ; he should have the best 
citizens of the neighborhood as prisoners at the start, and holding 
them as hostages should be able to dictate terms of egress from 
the town. I told him that Virginia would blow him and his host- 
ages sky-high rather than that he should h(dd Harper's Ferry an 
hour. Our talk was long and earnest ; we spent the most of Satur- 
day and a part of Sunday in this debate, — Brown for Harper's Ferry, 
and I against it ; he for striking a bk>w which should instantly rouse 
the country, and I for the policy of gradually and unaccountably 
drawing off the slaves to the mountains, as at first suggested and 
proposed by him. When I found that he had fully made up his 
mind and could not be dissuaded, I turned to Green and told him he 
heard wliat C.iptain Brown had said ; his old plan was changed, and 
I should return home, — if he wished to go with me he could do so. 
Captain Brown urged us both to go with him. In parting, he put 
his arms around me in a manner more than friendly, and said, ' C<nne 
with me, Douglass ; I will defend you with my lite. I want you for 
a special purpose. When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm, and 
I sliall want you to help hive them.' When about to leave, I asked 
Green what he had decided to do, and was surprised by his saying, 
in his broken way, ' I b'lieve I '11 go wid de ole man.' " ^ 

1 Among the papers captured at the Kennedy farm was this copy of a 
letter to Douglass which was signed by colored citizens of Philadelphia, and 
received at Rochester in Se[)teral)er : — 

F. D., Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Tlie iiiidersigned feel it to be of the utmost importance that our class 
be projierly represented in a convention to come offriglit away (near) Cliambersburg, in 
this State. We think you are the man of all others to represent us ; and we severally 
pledge ourselves that in case you will come right on we will see your family well pro- 
vided for during VouJ" absence, or until your safe return to them. Answer to us aa^ to 







CX^iA^^-^^.-^^ Q^^~\.-^{MaJ-V^^ 



tl882.J 



/S-)'.).] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 541 

In regard to the opposition of his followers to Brown's 
plan of beginning the campaign at Harper's Ferry, Owen 
Brown makes this statement (May 5, 1885) : 

" In the early part of September, 1859, father and I went with the 

horse and covered wagon from the Kennedy farm to Chanibersburi?, 

and at different times after in September and October, — to see if any 
express ^Mckages (colored volunteers) had arrived. We had many 
earnest discussions as to the feasibility of making the attack at Har- 
per's Ferry, — which plan was not known to any of us until after our 
arrival at the Kennedy farm. All of our men, excepting Merriam, 
Kagi, Shields Green, and the colored men (the latter knowing nothing 
of Harper's Ferry), were opposed to striking the first blow there. 
During our talk on the road, I said to fother : ' You know how it 
resulted with Napoleon when he rejected advice in regard to march- 
ing with his army to Moscow. I believe that in your anxiety to see 
that all is going on well at the three difierent points proposed to be 
taken (the Arsenal, the Rifle-works, and the Magazine), you will so 
expose yourself as to lose your life.' He said, finally, ' I feel S(» de- 
pressed on account of the opposition of the men, that at times I am 

John Henrie, Esq., Chambersburg, Penn., at once. We are ready to make you a re- 
mittance, if you go. We have now quite a number of good but not very intelligent 
representatives collected. Some of our members are ready to go on with you. 

Mr. Douglass writes me (April 15, 1885) : " You must be right about the 
time of my going to Chambersburg (Aug. 19, 1859). I took no note as to 
the exact time ; it was a night or two before Brown proposed to remove 
his arms to Harper's Ferry. This letter was sent to me from Philadelphia 
soon after I returned from meeting Captain Brown. It was signed by a 
number of colored men ; I never knew how they came to send it, but it 
now seems to have been prompted by Kagi, who was with Brown when 
I told him I would not go to Harper's Ferry. He probably thought I 
would reconsider my determination, if urged to do so by the parties 
who signed the letter." One of Brown's agents wrote thus to Kagi at the 
time of Douglass's visit : — 

Cleveland, Aug. 22, 1859. 

I wrote you immediately on receipt of your last letter ; then went up to Oberlin to 
see Leary. I saw Smith, Davis, and Mitchell ; they all pronjised, and that was all. 
Leary wants to i>rovide for his family ; Mitchell to lay his crops by ; and all make such 
excuses, until I am disgusted with myself and the whole negro set. If you were here 
your influence would do something ; but the moment you are gone all my sjieaking 
don't amount to anything. I will speak to Smith to-day. I knew that Mitchell had n't 
got the money, and I tried to sell my farm and everything else to raise money, but liave 
not rai.sed a cent yet. Charlie Langston fays " it is too bad," but wliat he will do, if any- 
thing, I don't know. I wish you would write to him, for I believe he can do more good 
than I. Please write to him immediately, and I will give up this thing to him. I 
think, however, nothing will inspire their confidence unless you come. I will do all 
I can. 



542 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1839. 

almost willing to temporarily abandon the undertaking.' I r(']>lit'd, 
' We have gone too far for that, — we must go ahead.' In the course 
of our talk he said to me, as he had many times to his men before, 
' We have here only one life to live, and once to die; and if we 
lose our lives it will perhaps do more for the cause than our lives 
could be worth in any other way.' I agreed with him in this. As 
we found no exjjress packages at Chambersburg, he remained there 
with Kasri, and I went back alone. In a day or two both returned 
to the Kennedy farm, and the next morning he called all his men 
together in the chamber of the Kennedy house, and said to them, ' I 
am not so strenuous about carrying out any of my particular plans as 
to do knowingly that which might probably result in an injury to the 
cause for which we are struggling ; ' and in the course of his remarks 
he repeated what he had said to me about our losing our lives. He 
then added, ' As you are all opposed to the plan of attacking here, I 
will resign ; we will choose another leader, and I will faithfully obey, 
reserving to myself the privilege of giving ccnmsel and advice where 
I think a better course could be adopted.' He did then resign. I 
first replied that I did not know of any one to choose as a leader in 
preference to him. In a short time, probably within five minutes, he 
was again chosen as the leader, and though we were not satisfied with 
the reasons he gave for making our first attack there, all controversy 
and opposition to the plan from that time was ended." 

It must have been about the time of this journey of 
the father and son that Watson Brown wrote thus to his 

wife : — 

Sept. 8, 1859. 

Dear Belle, — You can guess how I long to see you only by 
knowing how you wish to see me. I think of you all day, and dream 
of you at night. I would gladly come home and stay with yon 
always but for the cause which brought me here, — a desire to do 
something for others, and not live wholly for my own happiness. I 
am at home, five miles north of H. F., in an old house on the Ken- 
nedy farm, where we keep some things, and four of us sleep here. 
I came here to be alone ; Oliver has just come in and disturbed me. 
I was at Chambersburg a few days ago, and wrote you a line from 
there. The reason I did not write sooner was that there are ten of 
us here, and all who know tliem think they are with fiither, and have 
an idea wliat he is at; so you see if each and every one writes, all 
his friends will know where we all are ; if one writes (except on 
business) then all will have a right to. It is now dark, and I am in 
this old house all alone; but I have some good company, for I have 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 543 

just received your letter of August 30, and you may as well think I 
aui glad to hear from you. You may kiss the baby a great many 
times a day for me ; I am thinking of you and him all the time. 

Two events in no way connected with this visit of Doiig- 
lass, but happening about that time, may be mentioned. 
The anonymous warning to the Government, from Cincin- 
nati, that Brown was to strike at Harper's Ferry, was dated 
the Saturday that Douglass met Brown in Chambersburg, 
and mailed three days later. This was followed Avithin a 
week by Gerrit Smith's letter to the colored men of Syra- 
cuse, in which he predicted almost exactly what happened 
at Harper's Ferry. The Cincinnati letter was as follows : 

Cincinnati, August 20. 
Sir, — I have lately received information of a movement of so 
great importance, that I feel it my duty to impart it to you without 
delay. I have discovered the existence of a secret association, having 
for its object the liberation of the slaves at the South by a general 
insurrection. The leailer of the movement is "old John Brown," 
late of Kansas. He has been in Canada during tlie winter, drilling 
the negroes there, and they are only waiting liis word to start for the 
South to assist the slaves. They have one of their leading men (a 
white man) In an armory in Maryland, — where it is situated I have 
not been able to learn. As soon as everything is ready, those of 
their numl)er who are in the Northern States and Canada are to come 
in small companies to their rendezvous, which is in the mountains in 
Virginia. They will pass down througli Pennsylvania and Mary- 
land, and enter Virginia at Harper's Ferry. Brown left the Nortli 
about three or four weeks ago, and will arm the negroes and strike 
the blow in a few weeks ; so that whatever is done must be done at 
once. They have a large quantity of arms at their rendezvous, and 
are probably distributing them already. As I am not fully in their 
confidence, this is all the information I can give you. I dare not 
sign my name to this, but trust that you will not disregard the warn- 
ing on that account.^ 

1 The envelope is directed, "Hon. Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, Wnsh- 
ington," marked " private," and postmarked Cincinnati, August 2-3, 1859. 
Although the information sent to Floyd was very exact, and one would 
have supposed a Virginian specially se»isitive to such intelligence, it does 
not appear that he gave the matter more th;ni a passing thought. He 
received the letter at a Virginian watering-place, but did not read it twice, 



544 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

This letter was not heeded; nor was the more public 
warning given by Gerrit Smith, who, writing August 27, 
said, among other things : — 

" It is, perhaps, too late to bring slavery to an end by peaceable 
means, — too late to vote it down. For many years I have feared, 
and published my fears, that it must go out in blood. These fears 
luive grown into belief. So debauched are the white people by slav- 
ery that tliere is not virtue enough left in them to put it down. If 
I do not misinterpret the words and looks of the most intelligent and 
noble of the black men who fall in my way, they have come to 
despair of the accomplisliment of this work by the wiiite people. 
The feeling among the blacks that they must deliver themselves 
gains strength with fearful rapidity. No wonder, then, is it that 
intelligent black men in the States and in Canada should see no 
hope for their race in the practice and policy of white men. . . . 
Whoever he may be that foretells the horrible end of American slav- 
ery is held both at the North and the South to be a lying prophet, — 
another Cassandra. The South would not respect her own Jeffer- 
son's prediction of servile insurrection ; how then can it be hoped that 
she will respect another's? . . . And is it entirely certain that these 
insurrections will be put down promptly, and before they can have 
spread far? Will telegraphs and railroads be too swift for even the 
swiftest insurrections ? Remember that telegraphs and railroads can 
be rendered useless in an hour. Remember too that many who 
would be glad to face the insurgents would be busy in transporting 
their wives and daughters to places where they would be safe from 
that worst fate which husbands and fathers can imagine for their 
wives and daughters. I admit that but for this embarrassment 
Southern men would laugh at the idea of an insurrection, and would 
quickly dispose of one. "But trembling as they would for beloved 
ones, I know of no part of the world where, so much as in the South, 
men would be like, in a formidable insurrection, to lose the most 
important time, and be distracted and panic-stricken." 

although he laid it away at first as a paper of some moment. It has never 
been ascertained who wrote it, but perhaps a young man then connected 
with a Cincinnati newspaper. This person had become acquainted with a 
Hungarian refugee, formerly in the suite of Kossuth, then living in Kan- 
sas, and who had fought on the side of the North, possibly under Blown, 
and had learned in some detail the plan of tlie Virginia campaign. This 
it is believed he communicated in an unguarded monient to the Cincinnati 
reporter, who could not contain the secret, but sat down at once and wrote 
to the Secretary of War. It is possible that the infomiation came indi- 
rectly from Cook, who talked too freely. See p. 471. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 545 

' Gerrit Smith's prediction passed unnoticed, although, as 
his biographer says, " this Cassandra spoke from certainty." 
He knew what Brown's purpose was ;^ and his last contribu- 
tion of money to Brown's camp-chest was sent about the 
time this Syracuse letter was written. Whether he also 
knew that Harper's Ferry was to be attacked is uncertain ; 
for this was communicated only to a few persons except 
those actually under arms. Yet it was known by the Cin- 
cinnati correspondent of Secretary Floyd. Late in Septem- 
ber Jeremiah Anderson, one of Brown's men who was 
killed at the side of his captain in the engine-house at 
Harper's Ferry, wrote to his brother in Iowa, — 

" Oui' mining company will consist of between twenty-five and thiiljr 
well equipped witli tools. You can tell Uncle Dan it will be im])os- 
sible for ine to visit hiin before next spring. If my life is spared, I 
M'ill be tired of work by that time, and I shall visit my relatives and 
friends in Iowa, if I can get leave of absence. At present, I am 
bound by all that is honorable to continue in the course. We go in 
to win, at all hazards. So if you should hear of a failure, it will be 
after a desperate struggle, and loss of capital on both sides. But 
that is the last of our thoughts. Everything seems to work to our 
hands, and victory will surely perch upou our banner. The old man 
has had this operation in view for twenty years, and last winter was 
just a hint and trial of what could be done. This is not a large 
place,* but a precious one to Uncle Sam, as he has a great many 
tools here. I expect (when I start again travelling) to start at this 
place and go thrt>ugh the State of Virginia and on south, just as 
circumstances require ; mining and prospecting, and carrying the ore 
with us. I suppose this is the last letter I shall write before there is 
something in the wind. Whether I shall have a chance of sending 
letters then I do not know, but when I have an opportunity, I shall 
improve it. But if you don't get any from uie, don't take it for 
granted that I am gone up till you know it to be so. I consider my 
life about as safe in one place as another." 

1 This must also have been known to a writer in the "Anglo- African," 
a magazine for colored men, who said, in August, 1859 : — 

" So profoundly are we o]iposed to tlie favorite doctrine of the Puritans and their 
co-workers tlie colonizationists, — Ubi Libertas, ibi Patria, — that we could almost 
beseech Divine Providence to reverse some past events, and to fling back into the heart 
of Virginia and Maryland their Sam Wards, Highland Garnets, J. W. Penningtons, 
Frederick Douglasses, and the twenty thousand toho now shout hosannas in Canada, — 
and we would soon see some stirring in the direction of Ubi Patria, ibi Libertas." 

'^ Harper's Ferry. 

35 



546 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

This letter shows the smallness of the force with which 
Brown undertook his campaign. A few of those who were 
expected to join him did not arrive, and his actual force 
when he began was but twenty-two besides himself, per- 
haps only twenty-one, for there is some doubt concerning 
the presence of John Anderson, the person last-numbered 
in this list of Brown's band : — 

1. John Brown, commander-in-chief; 2. John Henry Kagi, adju- 
tant; 3. Aaron C Stephens, captain; 4. Watson Brown, captain; 
5. Oliver Brown, captain ; G. John E. Cook, captain ; 7. Charles 
Pluinmer Tidd,* cajjtain ; 8. WilUam H. Leenian, lieutenant; 9. 
Albert Hazlett, lieutenant; 10. Owen Brown,* cajitain; U. Jere- 
miah G. Anderson, lieutenant; 12. Edwin Coppoc, lieutenant : 13. 
William Thompson, lieutenant ; 14. Daupliin Thomj^son, lieuten- 
ant ; 15. Shields Green ;^ 16. Bangerfiehl Neichy ; 17. John A. 
Copeland; 18. Oshorn P. Anderson ; * 19. Lewis Leary ; 20. Stew- 
art Taylor; 21. Barclay Coppoc ;* 22. Francis Jackson Merriam ; * 
23. John Anderson.* 

It will be seen that this company was but the skeleton 
of an organization which it was intended to till up with 
recruits gathered from among the slaves and at the North; 
hence the great disproportion of officers to privates. Accord- 
ing to the general orders by Brown, dated at Harper's Ferry, 
Oct. 10, 1859, his forces were to be divided into battalions 
of four companies, which would contain, when full, seventy- 
two officers and men in each company, or two hundred and 
eighty-eight in the battalion. Provision was made for offi- 
cering and arming the four companies of the first battalion, 
which in the event of Brown's success would have been 
filled up as quickly as possible. Each company was to be 
divided into bands of seven men under a corporal, and every 
two bands made a section of sixteen men, under a sergeant. 
Until the companies were filled up, the commissioned offi- 
cers were intended to act as corporals and sergeants in these 
bands and sections, and they did so during the operations in 
Maryland and Virginia. 

Brown's youngest son wrote thus : — 

1 Those in italics were coloicd men ; those marked (*) escaped, but all 
save Owen Brown are now dead. He was treasurer as well as captain. 



1859] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 647 

Oliver Brown to his Family. 

PAuns Unknown, Sept. 9, 1859. 

Dear Mother, Brother, and Sisters, — Knowing that you all 
fi'il deeply interested in persons and matters here, I feel a wish to write 
all I can that is encouraging, feeling that we all need all the encour- 
agement we can get while we are travelling on through eternity, of 
which every day is a part. I can only say that we are all well, and 
that our work is going on very slowly, but we think satisfactorily. I 
would here say that I think there is no good reason why any of us 
should he discouraged ; for if we have done but one good act, life is 
not a failure. I shall probably start home with Martha and Anna 
about tlie last of this month. Salmon, you may make any use of 
the sugar things you can next year. I hope you will all keep a stiflf 
lip, a sound pluck, and believe that all will come out right in the 
end. Nell, I have not forgotten you, and I want you sh(.>uld remem- 
ber 7ne. Please, all write. Direct to John Henrie, Chambersburg, 
Pennsylvania. 

Believe me your affectionate son and brother, 

Oliver Smith. 

How fully the Brown family were apprised of the details 
of the Virginia campaign it is hardly possible to infer from 
the letters extant ; but so cautious was John Brown, and 
so irregular in his correspondence, that many points came 
late or not at all to the knowledge of individual members 
of the family. Thus John Brown, Jr., wrote to Kagi five 
wrecks before the attack : — 

West Andover, Sept. 8, 1859. 

Friend Henrie, — I yesterday evening received yours of Sep- 
tember 2, and I not only hasten to reply, but to lay its contents 
before those who are interested. . . . Through those associations 
which I formed in Canada, I am able to reach each individual mem- 
ber at the shortest notice by letter. I am devoting my whole time to 
our company business. Shall immediately go out organizing and 
raising funds. From what I even had understood, 1 had siqjposed 
you u-oidd not think it best to commence opening the coal hanks before 
spring, unless circmnstances should make it imperative. However, 
I suppose the reasons are satisfactory to you, and if so, those who 
own smaller shares ought not to object. I hope we shall be able to 
get on in season some of those old miners of whom I wrote you. 
Shall strain every n»;rve to accomydish this. You may be assured 



548 LIFE AND LETTERS OE JOHN BKOWN. [1859. 

that what you say to me will reach those who may be benefited 
thereby, and those who would take stock, in the shortest possible 
thne ; so don't fail to keep me posted. 

There is a general dearth of news in tliis region. By the way, I 
notice, through the "Cleveland Leader," that "Old Brown" is 
again figuring in Kansas. Well, every dog must have his day, and 
he will no doubt find the end of his tether. Did you ever know of 
such a liigh-handed piece of business ? However, it is just like him. 
The Black Republicans, some of them, uuiy wink at such things ; 
but I tell you, friend Henrie, he is too salt a dose for many of them 
to swallow, and I can already see symptoms of division in their 
ranks. We are bound to roll up a good stiff majority for our side 
this fall. I will send you herewith the item referred to, which I 
clii)p('d from the " Leader." Give regards to all, and believe me 
faithfully yours, John. 

Other correspondence followed this, but little that need 
he cited. The five weeks intervening between this letter 
and the attack were busy ones ; and, as usual, Brown was 
embarrassed for lack of money. I sent him through Kagi a 
draft for hfty dollars, August 30, and made a further remit- 
tance in September, amounting to one hundred and live 
dollars ; this completed the sum I had agreed to raise, — 
nearly one third of which was given by Gerrit Smith. The 
last contribution which Brown received was about six hun- 
dred dollars in gold, carried to him by Francis Merriam * 

1 Young Merriam was a gi-andson and namesake of Francis Jackson, the 
Boston Abolitionist (well known as the friend of Garrison, Philli]>.s, Parker, 
Qiiincy, and the otlier extreme Antislavery men), who had lieard from Red- 
istil and Hiuton of Bi'own'.sgeneial pari)Ose, and in December, 18.")S, wrote 
to Brown, otFering to join bin) "in any cafKieity you wish to place me, as 
far as my .small capaeities go." He bad been in Kansas in 1857-58, with 
a letter from Wendell Phillips, but did not find Brown. In the spring of 
1859, while Redpath and Merriam were in Hayti, Kagi had written to Hin- 
ton, asking the three to meet him in Boston ; but this meeting never took 
place. In September, 18J9, Merriam learned the details of the Virginia 
plan from Lewis Hayden, a Kentucky freedman, long resident in Boston, 
and came to me to renew the offer of liis services. 'His father was dead, 
and he had inherited a small property whicli .he was eagiM' to devote to 
some practical enterprise for freeing the slaves. He was at this time 
twenty-two years old, enthusiastic and resolute, but with little judgment, 
and in feeble health. 



1859.J THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 549 

from Boston the week before the attack was made at Har- 
per's Ferry. Kagi's diary (October 10-15) records Merriam's 
arrival and movements : — 

" Monday, October 10. — Mr. Merriain came ; went down with 
ine to M . 

" Tuesday. — Diinas returned to Mrs. Ritner's. Wrote J. B., Jr. 
Saw Watson, and appointed meeting for Thursday eve. Saw Car- 
lisle about purchases. 

" Wednesday. — Wrote William Still. Wrote to S. Jones, send- 
ing men off. Leary and Copeland arrived. 

" Thursday. — lleceived letter fnjin Merriam, dated Baltimore. 

"Friday, October 15. — Sent telegram to Merriam at Baltimore." 

" Watson " was one of Brown's sons, from whose letters 
to his young wife during September and October a few sen- 
tences may be quoted : — 

We have only two black men with us now ; one of these has a 
wife and seven children in slavery. I sometimes feel as though I 
could not make the sacrifice i but what would I want others to do, 
were I in their place? . . . Oh, Bell, I do want to see you and the 
little fellow [the young babe born,in the father's absence] very much, 
but I must wait. There was a slave near here whose wife was sold 
off South the other day, and he was found in Thomas Kennedy's or- 
chard, dead, the next morning. Cannot come home so long as such 
things are done here. ... I sometimes think perhaps we shall not 
meet again. If we should not, you have an object to live for, — to 
be a mother to our little Fred. He is not quite a reality to me yet. 
We leave here this aftenioon or to-morrow for the last time. You 
will probably hear from us very soon after getting this, if not before. 
We are all eager for the work, and confident of success. There was 
another murder committed near our place the otlicr day, making in 
all five murders and one suicide within five miles of our place since 
we have lived there ; they were all slaves, too. . . . Give my re- 
gards to all the friends, and keep up good courage : there is a better 
day a-coming. I can but commend you to yourself and your friends 
if I sliould never see you again. Believe nie yours wholly and forever 
in love. Your husband, 

Watson Brown. ^ 

1 Watson was just twenty-four, and had been married for three years 
to Isabel Thompson, whose brothers William and Dauphin Thompson, like 
her husband and bvother-in-law, were killed at Harper's Ferry. 



550 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Brown himself wrote thus to his family : — 

Chambeksburg, Penn., Oct. 1, 1859. 

Dear Wife and Children, all, — I parted with Martha aud 
Aune at Harrisburg, yesterday, in company with Oliver, on their 
way liome. I trust before this reaches you the women will have ar- 
rived safe. I have encouragement of having fifty dollars or more 
sent you soon, to help you to get through the winter; and I shall cer- 
tainly do all iu my power for you, and try to commend you always 
to the God of my fathers. 

Perhaps you can keep your animals in good condition thmngh the 
winter on potatoes mostly, much cheaper than on any other feed. I 
think that would certainly be the case if the crop is good, and is 
secured well and in time. 

I sent along four pairs blankets, with directions for Martha to 
have the first choice, and for Bell, Abbie, and Anne to cast lots for a 
choice in the three other pairs. My reason is that I think Martha 
fairly entitled to phrticular notice.^ 

To my other daughters I can only send my blessing just now. 
Anne, I want you, first of all, to become a sincere, humble, earnest, 
and consistent Christian ; and then acquire good and efficient business 
habits. Save this letter to remember your father by, Anne. 

You must all send to John hereafter anything you want sliould get 
to us ; and you may lie sure we shall all be very anxious to learn 
everything about your welfare. Read the " Tribune " carefully. It 
may not "always be certainly true, however. Begin early to take 
good care of all your animals, and pinch them at the close of the 
winter, if you must at all. 

God Almighty bless and save you all ! 

Your affectionate husband and father. 

Harper's Ferry was named for Kobert Harper, an English 
millwright, who obtained a grant of it in 1748 from Lord 
Fairfax, the friend of Washington. The first survey of this 
tract was made by W^ashington, who is said to have selected 
the Ferry, in 1794, as the site of a national armory. The 
scenery has been described by Jefferson in his " Notes on 
Virginia," written shortly before the death of Robert Har- 
per in 1782, aud presenting the view from Jefferson's rock, 

1 Martha was the wife of Oliver, and was to be confined in Jlarch. 
Bell was the wife of Watson, and the sister of William and Daupliin 
Thompson ; Abbie was the wife of Salmon Brown, who stayed at home 
with his mother. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 551 

above the village. " You stand on a very high point of 
laml ; on your right comes up the Shenandoah, having 
ranged along the foot of the mo"untain a hundred miles to 
find a vent ; on your left approaches the Potomac, in quest 
of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they 
rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and 
pass off to the sea. The scene is worth a voyage across the 
Atlantic ; . . . these monuments of a war between rivers 
and mountains which must have shaken the earth itself to 
its centre." Around this junction of the two rivers had 
grown up a village of three or four thousand inhabitants, 
isorth of the Potomac rise the iMarylaud Heights almost 
perpendicular to the river's bank, thirteen hundred feet 
above it. The Loudon Heights, across the Shenandoah, are 
lower, but both ridges overtop the hill between them, and 
make it untenable for an army, while this hill itself com- 
mands all below it, and makes the town indefensible against 
a force there. Therefore, when Brown captured Harper's 
Ferry, he placed himself in a trap where he was sure to be 
taken, unless he should quickly leave it. His first mistake 
(and he made many in this choice of his point of attack and 
his method of warfare) was to cross the Potomac at a place 
so near Washington and Baltimore, which are distant but 
sixty and eighty miles respectively from the bridge over 
which he marched his men. This bridge is used both by 
the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and by the travellers along 
the public highway ; and the only approach to it from the 
Maryland side is by a narrow road under the steep cliff, or 
by the railroad itself. On the Virginia side there are roads 
leading up from the Shenandoah valley, and both up and 
down the Potomac. Harper's Ferry is indeed the Ther- 
mopylae of Virginia. General Lee, the Hector of the South- 
ern Troy, came here with soldiers of the national army to 
capture Brown in 1859 ; he came again and repeatedly as 
commander of the Southern armies during the next live 
years. His soldiers and their opponents of the Union army 
cannonaded, burned, pillaged, and abandoned the town, 
which has not yet recovered from the ruin of the war. 

Before Brown's foray, one of his captains (Cook) had 
visited the house of Colonel Lewis Washington (great- 



552 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

grandson of George Washington's brother), and learned 
where to put his hand upon the sword of Frederick the 
Great and the pistols of Lafayette, presented by them to 
Washington, and by him to his brother's descendants. 
With that sense of historical association which led Brown 
to make his first attack upon slavery in Virginia and amid 
the scenes of Washington's early life, this liberator of the 
slaves had determined to appear at their head wielding 
Washington's own sword, and followed by freedmen who 
had owed service in the Washington family. He therefore 
assigned to Stephens and to Cook, as their first duty after 
Harper's Ferry should be taken, to proceed to Colonel Wash- 
ington's plantation of Bellair, about four miles south of the 
Ferry, seize him, with his arms, set free his slaves, and 
bring him as a hostage to the captured town ; and he even 
directed that Osborn Anderson, a free black, should receive 
from Washington the historical weapons.* 

Cook in his confession said : — 

" There were some six or seven in Brown's party who did not 
know anything of our Constitution, and wore also ignorant of the 
plan of operations until Sunday morning, October 16. Among this 
number were Edwin and Barehiy Coppoc, Merriam, Shields Green, 
Copeland, and Leary. The Constitution was read to them by Ste- 
phens, and the oath afterward administered by Captain Brown. On 
Sunday evening Captain Brown made his final arrangements for the 
capture of Harper's Ferry, and gave to his men their orders. In 
closing, he said : ' And now, gentlemen, let me press this one' thing 
on your minds. You all know how dear life is to you, and how dear 
your lives are to your friends; and in remembering that, consider 
that the lives of others are as dear to them as yours are to you. Do 
not, therefore, take the life of any one if you can possibly avoid it ; 
but if it is necessary to take life in order to save your own, then 
make sure work of it.' " 

At the Kennedy farm-house, about eight o'clock on the 
evening of Sunday, — a cold and dark night, ending in rain, 
— Brown mustered his eighteen followers, saying, "Men, 

^ The Puritanic Quixotism and the prophetic symbolism of Brown's 
character united in this act, which will he rcnieajheri'd longer than many 
of his exploits that were more inij»ortant in their results. 



1859.] THE FOE AY IN VIRGINIA. 553 

get on your arms ; we will proceed to the Ferry." His horse 
and wagon were brought to the door of the farmhouse, and 
some pikes, a sledge-hammer, and a crowbar were placed in 
the wagon. Brown " put on his old Kansas cap," mounted 
the wagon, and said, " Come, boys ! " at the same time driv- 
ing his horse down the rude lane into the main road. His 
men followed him on foot, two and two, Charles Plummer 
Tidd, a Maine farmer who had joined him in Kansas, and 
John E. Cook taking the lead. At a proper time they were 
sent forward in adv^auce of the wagon to tear down the tel- 
egraph wires on the Maryland side of the Potomac. The 
other couples walked at some distance apart and in silence, 
making no display of arms. Now and then some of them 
rode beside Brown. When overtaken by any one, the rear 
couple were to detain the stranger until the party had passed 
on or concealed themselves, and the same order was given if 
they were met by any one. The road was unfrequented 
that night, and they passed down through the woods to the 
bridge across the Potomac without delay or adventure. 
Upon entering the covered bridge they halted and fastened 
their cartridge-boxes, with forty rounds of ammunition, out- 
side their coats, and brought their rifles into view. As they 
approached the Virginia side, the watchman who patrolled 
the bridge met them and was arrested by Kagi and Ste- 
phens, who took him to the armory gate, leaving Watson 
Brown and Stewart Taylor to guard the bridge. The rest 
of the company proceeded with Brown, in his wagon or on 
foot, to the armory gate, which was but a few rods from the 
Virginia end of the bridge. There they halted at about 
half past ten o'clock, broke open the gate with the crowbar 
in the wagon, rushed inside the armory yard, and seized one 
of the two watchmen on duty. Brown himself with two 
men then mounted guard at the armory gate, and the other 
fourteen men were sent to different parts of the village. 
Oliver Brown and William Thompson occupied the bridge 
over the Shenandoah, and there arrested a few prisoners. 
Kagi, with John Copeland, went up the Shenandoah a half- 
mile or more to that part of the armory called " the rifle 
works," where he captured the Avatchmen, sent them to 
Brown, and occupied the buildings. Edwin Coppoc and 



554 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Albert Hazlett went across the street from the armory gate 
and occupied the arsenal, which was not in the armory in- 
closure. All this was done quietly and without the snapping 
of a gun ; and before midnight the whole village was in the 
possession of Brown and his men. He then dispatched 
Stephens, Cook, and others, six in all, on the turnpike 
toward Charlestowa to bring in Colonel Washington and 
some of his neighbors, with their slaves.^ This was done 
before four in the morning ; and then some of the same party 
went across into Maryland and brought in Terence Byrne, 
a small slaveholder, at whose house they had expected to 
find slaves, but did not. In the mean time, at 1.30 a. m., 
the railroad train from the west had come in, and a negro 
porter, who was crossing the bridge to find the missing 
watchman, was stopped by Watson Brown's guard. Turn- 

1 The interview between Brown and Colonel Washington (who was one 
of the military staff of the Governor of Virginia, and thence derived his 
title) is thns described by Washington : " We drove to the armory gate. 
The person on the front seat of tlie carriage said : ' All 's well ; ' and the 
reply came from the sentinel at the gate, ' All 's well.' Then the gates 
were opened, and I was driven in and was received by Old Brown. He did 
not address me by name, but said : ' You will ftnd a fire in here, sir ; it is 
rather *cool this morning.' Afterwards he came and said : ' I presume you 
are Mr. Washington. It is too dark to see to write at this time ; but when 
it shall have cleared off a little and become ligliter, if you have not pen 
and ink I will furnish them, and shall require you to write to some of 
your friends to send a stout, able-bodied negro. I think, after a while, 
possibly I shall be able to release you ; but only on condition of getting 
your friends to send in a negro man as a ransom. I shall be very atten- 
tive to you, sir ; for I may get the worst of it in my first encounter, and if 
so, your life is worth as much as mine. My particular reason for taking 
you first was, that as an aid to the Governor of Virginia I knew you 
would endeavor to perform your duty ; and apart from that, I wanted 
you particularly for the moral effect it would give our cause having one 
of your name as a prisoner.' I supposed at that time, from his actions, 
that his force was a large one, — that he was very strong. Shortly after 
reaching the armory I found the sword of General Washington in Old 
Brown's hand. He said, ' I will take especial care of it, and shall en- 
deavor to return it to you after you are released.' Brown carried it in 
his hand all day Monday ; when the attacking party came on, Tuesday 
morning, he laid it on the fire-engine, and after the I'escue I got it." 

Colonel Washington survived the Civil War, in which he took no part. 
His widow has sold this sword, with other mementos of Washington, 
to the State df New York. 



1859. 



THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 555 



ing to run back and refusing to halt, he was shot and mor- 
tally wounded by one of the bridge guard, which was now 
increased to three. This was the first shot fired on either 
side, and was three hours after the entrance of Brown into 
the village. Shots were fired in return by some of the rail- 
road men, and then no more firing took place until after 
sunrise. Before sunrise the train had been allowed to go 
forward, Brown and one of his men walking across the 
bridge with the conductor of the train to satisfy him that 
all was safe, and that the bridge was not broken down. The 
work of gathering up prisoners as hostages had also been 
pushed vigorously, and before noon Brown had more than 
twice the number of his own force imprisoned in the armory 
yard. None of his own men were killed or captured until 
ten or eleven o'clock on Monday morning, when Dangerfield 
Newby, the Virginia fugitive, was shot near the armory 
gate. Shortly afterward Stephens was wounded and cap- 
tured, Watson Brown wounded, and William Thompson 
captured. For from nine o'clock (when the terrified citizens 
of Harper's Ferry found a few arms and mustered courage 
enough to use them) until night, the Virginians, armed and 
officered, had been surrounding Brown's position, and before 
noon had cut off his retreat into Maryland. During the 
four or five hours after daybreak when he might have es- 
caped from the town, he was urged to do so by Kagi, by 
Stephens, and by others ; but delayed until it was too late. 
For twelve hours he held the town at his mercy ; after that 
he was firmly caught in the trap he had entered, and the de- 
fpfit of his foray was only the question of a few hours' time. 
He drew back his shattered forces into the engine-house 
near the armory gate, soon after noon ; but neither his men 
at the rifle works, nor those at the arsenal across the street, 
nor his son Owen, on the Maryland side of the Potomac, 
could join him. He fought bravely, and so did Kagi and 
his few men on the bank of the Shenandoah; but the latter 
were all killed or captured before the middle of the after- 
noon ; and at evening, when Colonel Lee arrived from Wash- 
ington with a company of United States marines, nothing 
was left of Brown's band except himself and six men, two 
of them wounded, in his weak fortress, and two unharmed 



556 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

and undiscovered men, Hazlett and Osborn Anderson, in the 
arsenal not far off. His enterprise had failed, and through 
his own fault. 

Why, then, did Brown attack Harper's Ferry, or, having 
captured it, why did he not leave it at once and push on 
into the mountains of Virginia, according to his original 
plan ? His explanation is characteristic : it was foreor- 
dained to be so. " All our actions," he said, •' even all the 
follies that led to this disaster, were decreed to happen ages 
before the world was made." He declared that had he be- 
taken himself to the mountains he could never have been 
captured, " for he and his men had studied the country 
carefully, and knew it a hundred times better than any of 
the inhabitants." He ascribed his ruin to his weakness in 
listening to the entreaties of his prisoners and delaying his 
departure from the captured town. "It was the first time," 
somebody reports him as saying, "that I ever lost command 
of myself; and now I am punished for it." But he soon 
began to see that this mistake was leading him to his most 
glorious success, — a victory such as he might never have 
won in his own way. 

Among many accounts of the final scenes of tragedy at 
Harper's Ferry, one of the best is that of Captain Danger- 
field, who at the time was a clerk in the armory, and was 
made prisoner early in the morning of October 17. He 
says : ^ — 

" I walked tdwarrls my office, then just within the armory inclosure, 
and not more than a hundred yards from my honse. As I proceeded, 
I saw a man come out of an alley, then another and another, all 
coinini? towards me. I inquired what all tliis meant; they said, 
' Nothins;, only they had taken possession of tlie Government works.' 
I told them they talked like crazy men. They answered, ' Not so 
crazy as you think, as you will soon see,' Up to this time I had 
not seen any arms. Presently, however, the men threw hack the 
short cloaks they wore, and disclosed Sharp's rifles, pistols, and 
knives. Seeing these, and fearing something serious was going on, 
I told the men I believed I would return home. They at once cocked 

1 See the "Century Magazine" for June, 1885. I have abridged the 
narrative here and there. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 557 

their guns, and told ine I was a prisoner. This surprised me, but I 
could do nothing, being unarmed. I talked M'ith them some little 
time longer, and again essayed to go home ; but one of the men 
stepped before me, presented his gun, and told me if I moved I would 
be shot down. I then asked what they intended to do with me. 
They said I was in no personal danger ; they only wanted to carry 
me to their captain, John Smith. I asked them where Captain Sujith 
was. They answered at the guard house, inside of the armory iu- 
closure. I told them I would go there ; that was the point for which 
J first started. (My office was there, and I felt uneasy lest the vault 
had been broken open.) 

•' Upon reaching the gate, I saw what indeed looked like war, — 
negroes armed with pikes, and sentinels with muskets all around. T 
was turned over to ' Captain Smith,' who called me by name, and 
asked if I knew Colonel Washington and others, mentioning familiar 
names. I said I did ; and he then said, ' Sir, you will hnd them 
tliere,' motioning me towards the engine-room. We were not kept 
closely confined, but were allowed to converse with him. I asked 
him what his object -was. He replied, ' To free the negroes of 
Virginia.' He added that he was prepared to do it, and by 
twelve o'clock would have fifteen hundred men with him, ready 
armed. Up to this time the citizens had hardly begun to move 
about, and knew nothing of the raid. When they learned what was 
going on, some came out with old shotguns, and were themselves 
shot by concealed men. All the stores, as well as the arsenal, were 
in the hands of Brown's men, and it was impossible to get either 
arms or ammunition, there being hardly any private weapons. At 
last, however, a few arms were obtained, and a body of citizens 
crossed the I'iver and advanced from the Maryland side. They made 
a vigorous attack, and in a few minutes caused all the invaders who 
were not killed to retreat to Brown inside of the armory gate. Then 
he entered the engine-house, carrying his prisoners along, or rather 
part of them, for he made selections. After getting into the etigine- 
house, he made this speech : - ' Gentlemen, perhaps you wonder why 
I have selected you from the others. It is because I believe you 
to be more influential ; and I have only to say now, that you will 
have to share precisely the same fate that your friends extend to my 
men.' He began at once to bar the doors and windows, and to cut 
portholes through the brick wall. 

"Then commenced a terrible firing from without, at every point 
from which the windows could be seen, and in a few minutes every 
window was shattered, and hundreds of balls came through the doors. 
These shots were answered fi-om witliin whenever the attacking party 
could be seen. This was kept up most of the day, and, strange to 



558 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

say, not a prisoner was hurt, though thousands of balls were im- 
hedded in the walls, and holes shot in the doors almost large enough 
for a man to creep through. At night the firing ceased, for we were 
in total darkness, and notliing cf)uld be seen in the engine-house. 
During the day and night I talked much with Brown. I found him 
as brave as a man could be, and sensible upijn all subjects except 
slavery. He believed it was his duty to free the slaves, even if in 
doing so he lost his own life. During a sharp fight one of Brown's 
sons was killed. He fell ; then trying to raise himself, he said, ' It 
is all over with me,' and died instantly. Brown did not leave his 
post at the porthole ; but when the fighting was over he walked to 
his son's body, straightened out his limbs, took oflF his trappings, and 
then, turning to me, said, ' This is the third son I have lost in this 
cause.' Another son had been shot in the morning, and was then 
dying, having been brought in from the street. Often during the 
aflair in the engine-house, when his men would want to fire upon 
some one who might be seen passing. Brown would stop them, say- 
ing, ' Don't shoot ; that man is unarmed.' The firing was kept 
up by our men all day and until late at night, and during that time 
several of his men were killed, but none of the prisoners were hurt, 
though in great danger. During the day and uiglit many proposi- 
tions, pro and con, were made, looking to Brown's surrender and the 
release of the prisoners, but without result. 

" When Colonel Lee came with the Government troops in the 
night, he at once sent a flag of truce by his aid, J. E. B. Stuart, to 
notify Brown of his arrival, and in the name of the United States to 
demand his surrender, advising him to throw himself on the clemency 
of the Government. Brown declined to accept Colonel Lee's terms, 
and determined to await the attack. When Stuart was admitted 
and a light brought, he exclaimed, ' Wliy, are n't you old Osawa- 
tomie Brown of Kansas, whom I once had there as my prisoner ? ' 
' Yes,' was the answer, ' but you did not keep me.' This was the 
•first intimation we had of Brown's real name. When Colonel Lee 
advised Brown to trust to the clemency of the Government, Brown 
responded that he knew what that meant, — a rope for his men and 
himself; adding, 'I prefer to die just here.' Stuart told him he 
would return at early morning for his final reply, and left him. 
When he had gone. Brown at once-proceeded to barricade the doors, 
wind(tws, etc., endeavoring to make the jjlace as strong as possilde. 
All this time no one of Brown's men showed the slightest fear, but 
calmly awaited the attack, selecting the best situations to fire from, 
and arranging their guns and pistols so that a fresh (me could be 
taken up as soon as one was discharged. During the night I had a 
long talk with Brown, and told him tliat he and his men were com- 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 559 

mitting treason against the State and the United States. Two of Lis 
men, hearing the conversation, said to their leader, ' Are we commit- 
ting treason against our country by being here "! ' Brown answered, 
' Certainly.' Both said, ' If that is so, we don't want to fight any 
more ; we thought we came to liberate the slaves, and did not know 
that was committing treason.' Both of these men were afterwards 
killed in the attack on the engine-house. When Lieutenant Stuart 
came in the nifirning for the final reply to the demand to surrender, 
I got up and went to Brown's side to hear his answer. Stuart asked, 
'Are you ready to surrender, and trust to the mercy of the Govern- 
ment ? ' Brown answered, ' No, I prefer to die here.' His manner 
did not betray the least alarm. Stuart stepped aside and made a 
signal for the attack, which was instantly begun with sledge-ham- 
mers to break down the door. Finding it would not yield, the 
soldiers seized a long ladder for a battering-ram, and commenced 
beating the door with that, the party within firing incessantly. I 
had assisted in the barricading, fixing the fastenings so that I could 
remove them on the first efi'ort to get in. But I was not at the door 
when the battering began, and could not get to the fastenings till 
the ladder was used. I then quickly removed the fastenings ; and, 
after two or three strokes of the ladder, the engine rolled partially 
back, making a small aperture, through which Lieutenant Green of 
the marines forced his way, jumped on top of the engine, and stood 
a second, amidst a shovA'er of balls, hxdiing for John Brown. When 
he saw Brown he sprang about twelve feet at him. giving an under 
thrust of his sword, striking Brown ab(jut midway the body, and 
raising him completely from the ground. Brown fell forward, with 
his head between his knees, while Green struck him several times 
over the head, and, as I then supjiosed, split his skull at every 
stroke. I was not two feet from Brown at that time. Of course I 
got out of the building as soon as possible, and did not know till 
some time later that Brown was not killed. It seems that Green's 
sword, in making the thrust, struck Brown's belt and did not pene- 
trate the body. The sword was bent double. The reason that 
Brown was not killed when struck on the head was, that Green was 
holding his sword in the middle, striking with the hilt, and making 
only scalp wounds. 

" When Governor Wise came and was examining Brown, I heard 
the questions and answers, and no lawyer could have used more care- 
ful reserve, while at the same time he showed no disrespect. Gov- 
ernor Wise was astonished at the answers he received from Brown. 
After some controversy between the United States and the State of 
Virginia, as to which had jurisdiction over the prisoners. Brown was 
carried -to the Charlestovvu jail, and after a fair trial was hanged. Of 



560 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

course I was a witness at the trial ; and I must say that I have never 
seen any man display more courage and fortitude than John Brown 
showed under the trying circumstances in M'hinh he was placed. I 
could not go to see him hanged. He had made me a prisoner, but 
liad spared my life and that of other gentlemen in his power ; and 
wlien his sons were shot down beside him, almost any other man 
similarly placed would at least have exacted life for life." 

This Colonel Lee was tlie same officer who as General of 
the Confederate Army afterwards maintained so bravely 
the lost cause of slavery, and surrendered to General Grant 
and the Army of the Potomac in April, 1865. He was in 
1859 in high command, under General Scott, in the United 
States Army, and then, as afterwards, a defender of slav- 
ery and slaveholding Virginia.^ Both he and his subordi- 
nate, Major Russell, treated Brown, who was supposed to 
be dying, with consideration. After his capture the crowd 
gathered round Brown, who told them not to maltreat him, 
— that he was dj'ing, and would soon be beyond all injury. 
Major Russell had him conveyed into a room, and kindly 
ordered all attention to be paid him. Brown, recognizing 
Russell, said, "You entered first. I could have killed 
you, but I spared you." In reply to which the Major 
bowed and said, " I thank you." Brown said : — 

'' My name is John Brown ; I have been well known as Old 
Brown of Kansas. Two of my sous were killed here to-day, and 
I'm dying too. I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no 
reward. I have acted from a sense of duty, and am content to 
await my fate ; but I think the crowd have treated me badly. I am 
an old man. Yesterday I could have killed whom I chose; but I had 
no desire to kill any person, and would not have killed a man had 
they not tried to kill me and my men. I could have sacked and 

1 A year before General Lee's death lie said to John Leyburn, at Balti- 
more, that he had never been an advocate of slavery, had emaneipated 
most of liis slaves before the war, arid rejoiced that slavery was abolished ; 
adding: " I would cheerfully have lost all 1 have lost by the wnr, and 
have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained." I print 
this in justice to a brave soldier ; but his warfare was as much in defence 
of slavery as Hector's in defence of Helen, though the great Trojan did not 
approve of Paris as against Menelaus. General Lee's 
" One best omen was Virgiida's cause." 



1859. 



THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 561 



burned the town, but did not ; I have treated the persons whom I 
took as hostages kindly, and I appeal to thein for the truth of what 
I say. If I had succeeded in running oif slaves this time, I could 
have raised twenty times as many men as 1 have now, for a similar 
expedition. But I have failed." 

To the master of the armory, while a prisoner, Brown 
had said : — 

" We are Abolitionists from the North, come to take and release 
your slaves ; our organization is large, and must succeed. I suffered 
much in Kansas, and expect to sutier here, in the cause of human 
freedom. Slaveholders I regard as robbers and murderers; and I 
have sworn to abolish slavery and liberate my fellow-men." 

To a reporter he said : — 

" A lenient feeling towards the citizens led me into a parley with 
them as to compromise ; and by prevarication on their part I was 
delayed until attacked, and then iu self-defence was forced to in- 
trench myself." 

While Brown was thus undergoing questions from offi- 
cers, reporters, citizens, and others, Colonel Lee said that 
he would exclude all visitors from the room if the wounded 
men w^ere annoyed by them. Brown said that on the con- 
trary he was glad to be able to make himself and his 
motives clearly understood. He conversed freely, fluently, 
and cheerfully, without fear or uneasiness, weighing well 
his words. 

The " New York Herald " correspondent says : ^ — 

1 In a paper printed in the " Atlantic Monthly," July, 1874, I used 
tliis expression : " It was the everlasting reporter of tlie ' New York 
Herald ' who then and there [at Harper's Ferry, in October, 1859] noted 
down the undyins; words that rai<?ht else have been lost, or distorted in 
the recital of the base men to whom they were spoken." In the last let- 
ter I ever received from Gerrit Smith, soon after my latest visit to him in 
the summer of 1874, he thus alluded to my remark : "By the way, I 
never before knew of the essential service of the ' New York Herald ' in 
preservinn; ' the undying words' of John Brown. Remember that I was 
sick at that time. As Providence chose filthy ravens to feed Elijah, so did 
Providence choose this vile sheet to carry to mankind the precious truths 
which came from the lips of dear John Brown." 

36 



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/ 
1859.1 THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 563 

Mason. If yuu would tell us who seut you here, — who provided 
the means, — that would be iufonnation of some value. 

Broion. I will answer freely and faithfully about what concerns 
myself, — I will answer anything I can with honor, — but not about 
others. 

Mr. Vallandigham (who had just entered). Mr. Brown, wlio 
sent you here ? 

Broivn. No man sent me here ; it was my own proTnpting and 
that of my Maker, or that of the Devil, — whichever you please to 
ascribe it to. I acknowledge no master in human form. 
Vallandigham. Did you get up the expedition yourself? 

Brown. I did. 

Vallandigham. Did you get up this document that is called a 
Constitution f 

Broivn. I did. They are a constitution and ordinances of my 
own contriving and getting up. 

Vallandigham. How long have you been engaged in this 
business ? 

Broivn. From the breaking out of the difficulties in Kansas. 
Four of my sons had gone there to settle, and they induced me to go. 
I did not go there to settle, but because of the difficulties. 

Mason. How many are there engaged with you in this 
movement ? 

Brown. Any questions that I can honorably answer I will, — not 
otherwise. So fiir as I am myself concerned, I have told everything 
trutlifuUy. I value my word, sir. 

Mason. What was your object in coming ? 

Brown. We came to free the slaves, and only that. 

A Volunteer. How many men, in all, had you ? 

Broivn. I came to Virginia with eighteen men only, besides 
myself 

Volunteer. What in the world did you suppose you could do here 
in Virginia with that amount of men ? 

Brown. Young man, I do not wisli to discuss that question here. 

Volunteer. You could not do anytliing. 

Brown. Well, perhaps your ideas and mine on military subjects 
would differ materially. 

Mason. How do you justify your acts ? 

Brown I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong 
against God and humanity, — I say it without wishing to be offen- 
sive, — and it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with 
you so far as to free those you wilfidly and wickedly hold in bondage. 
I do not say this insultingly. 

Mason. I understand that. 



564 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Brown. I think I did right, and that others will do right who 
interfere with you at any time and at all times. I hold that the 
Golden Rule, " Do unto others as ye would that others should 
do unto you," applies to all who would help others to gain their 
liherty. 

Lieutenant Stuart. But don't you believe in the Bible ? 

Brown. Certainly I do. 

Mason. Did you consider this a military organization in this 
Constitution? 1 have not yet read it. 

Brown. I did, in some sense. I wish you would give that paper 
close attention. 

Mason. You consider yourself the commander-in-chief of these 
"provisional" military forces? 

Brown. I was chosen, agreeably to the ordinance of a certain 
document, commander-in-chief of that force. 

Mason. Wliat wages did you offer? 

Brown. None. 

Stuart. " The wages of sin is death." 

Brown. I would not liave made such a remark to you if you had 
been a prisoner, and wounded, in my hands. 

A Bystander. Did you not promise a negro in Gettysburg twenty 
dollars a month ? 

Brown. I did not. 

Mason. Does this talking annoy you ? 

Brown. Not in the least. 

Vallandigham. Have you lived long in Ohio ? 

Brown. I went there in 1805. I lived in Summit County, which 
was then Portage County. My native place is Connecticut ; my 
father lived there till 1805. 

Vallandigham. Have you been in Portage County lately ? 

Broivn. I was there in June last. 

Vallandigham. When in Cleveland, did you attend the Fugitive 
Slave Law Convention there ? 

Brown. No. I was there about the time of the sitting of the 
court to try the Oberlin rescuers. I spoke there publicly on that 
subject ; on the Fugitive Slave Law and my own rescue. Of course, 
so far as I had any influence at all, I was supposed to justify tlie 
Oberlin people for rescuing the slave, because I have myself forcibly 
taken slaves from bondage. I was concerned in taking eleven slaves 
from Missouri to Canada last winter. I think I spoke in Cleveland 
before the Convention. I do not know that I had conversation with 
any of the Oberlin rescuei's. I was sick part of the time I was in 
Ohio with the ague, in Ashtabula County. 



1859] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 565 

Vallandigham. Did you see anything of Joshua R. Giddings 
there ? 

Brown. I did meet him. 

Vallandigham. Did you converse with him ? 

Brown. I did. I would not tell you, of course, anything that 
would implicate Mr. Giddiugs ; but I certainly met with him and 
had conversations witli him. 

Vallandigham. About that rescue case ? 

Brown. Yes ; I heard him express his opinions upon it very 
freely and frankly. 

Vallandigham. Justifying it ? 

Brown. Yes, sir ; I do not compromise him, certainly, in saying 
that. 

Vallandigham. Will you answer this : Did you talk with Gid- 
dings about your expedition here ? 

Brown. No, I won't answer that ; because a denial of it I would 
not make, and to make any affirmation of it I should be a great 
dunce. 

Vallandigham. Have you liad any correspondence with parties at 
the North on the subject of this movement ? 

Brown. I have had correspondence. 

A Bystander. Do you consider this a religious movement ? 

Brown. It is, in my opinion, the greatest service man can render 
to God. 

Bystander. Do you consider yourself an instrument in the hands 
of Providence ? 

Brown. I do. 

Bystander. Upon what principle do you justify your acts ? 

Brown. Upon the Golden Rule. I pity the poor in bondage that 
have none to help them : that is why I am here ; not to gratify any 
personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy 
with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you and as 
precious in the sight of God. 

Bystander. Certainly. But why take the slaves against their 
will'f 

Brotim. I never did. 

Bystander. You did in one instance, at least. 

Stephens, the other wounded prisoner, here said, " You are right. 
In one case I know the negro wanted to go back." 

Bystander. Where did you come from ? 

Stephens. I lived in Ashtabula County, Ohio. 

Vallandigham. How recently did you leave Ashtabula County ? 

Stephens. Some months ago. I never resided there any length of 
time ; have been through there. 



iJGij LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

VallaadigJiam. How far did you live from Jefl'ersou ? 

Brown. Be cautious, Stephens, about any answers that would 
commit any friend. I would not answer that. 

[Stephens turned partially over with a groan of pain, and was 
silent.] 

Vallandigliam. Who are your advisers in this movement ? 

Brown. I cannot answer that. I have numerous sympathizers 
throughout the entire North. 

Vallandigliam. In northern Ohio ? 

Brown. No more there than anywhere else ; in all the free 
States. 

Vallandigham. But you are not personally acquainted in south- 
ern Ohio I 

Broivn. Not very much. 

A Bystander. Did you ever live in Washington City ? 

Brown. I did not. I want you to understand, gentlemen, and [to 
the reporter of the " Herald "] you may report that, — I want you to 
understand that I respect the riglits of the poorest and weakest of 
colored people, oppressed by the slave system, just as much as I do 
those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea that has 
moved me, and that alone. We expected no reward except the satis- 
faction of endeavoring to do for those in distress and greatly oppressed 
as we would be done by. The cry of distress of the oppressed is my 
reason, and the only thing that prompted me to come here. 

Bystander. Why did you do it secretly ? 

Brown. Because 1 thought that necessary to success ; no other 
reason. 

Bystander. Have you read Gerrit Smith's last letter? 

Brown. What letter do you mean ? 

Bystander. The " New York Herald " of yesterday, in speaking 
of this affair, mentions a letter in this way : -^ 

" Apropos of this exciting news, we recollect a very significant passage 
in one of Gerrit Smith's letters, publislied a montli or two ago, in which lie 
speaks of the folly of attempting to strike the shackles off the slaves by the 
force of moral suasion or legal agitation, and predicts that tlie next move- 
ment made in the direction of negro emancipation would be au insurrection 
in the South." 

Brown. I have not seen the " New York Hei'ald '' for some days 
past ; but T presume, from your remark about the gist of the letter, 
that I should concur with it. I agree with Mr. Smith that moral 
suasion is hopeless. I don't think the people of the slave States will 
ever consider the subject of shivery in its true light till some other 
argument is resorted to than moral suasion. 



1859.] THE FORAY IX VIRGINIA. 567 

Vallandigham. Did you expect a general rising of the slaves in 
case of your success '? 

Brown. No, sir ; nor did I wish it. I expected to gather thein 
up from time to time, and set them free. 

Vallnndigham. Did you expect to hold possession here till then ? 

Brown. Well, probably I had quite a different idea. 1 do not know 
that I ought to reveal iny plans. 1 am here a prisoner and wounded, 
because I ftjolishly allowed myself to be so. You overrate your 
strength in supposing 1 could have been taken if I had not allowed 
it. I was too tardy after commencing the open attack — in delaying 
my movements through Monday night, and up to the time I was 
attacked by the Government troops. It was all occasioned by my 
desire to spare the feelings of my prisoners and their families and 
the comnmnity at large. I had no knowledge of the shooting of the 
negro Hey wood. 

Vallandigham. What time did you commence your organization 
in Canada f 

Brown. That occurred about two years ago ; in 1858. 

Vallandigham. Who was the secretary ? 

Brown. That I would not tell if I recollected; but I do not recol- 
lect. I think the officers were elected in May, 1858. I may answer 
incorrectly, but not intentionally. My head is a little confused by 
wounds, and my memory obscure on dates, etc. 

Dr. Biggs. Were you in the party at Dr. Kennedy's house ? 

Brown. I was the head of that party. I occupied the house 
to mature my plans. I have not been in Baltimore to purchase 
caps. 

Dr. Biggs. What was the number of men at Kennedy's ? 

Brown. I decline to answer that. 

Dr. Biggs. Who lanced that woman's neck on the hill ? 

Brown. I did. I Rave sometimes practised in surgery when I 
thought it a matter of humanity and necessity, and there was no one 
else to do it ; but I have not studied surgery. 

Dr. Biggs. It was done very well and scientifically. They have 
been very clever to the neighbors, I have been told, and we had no 
reason to suspect them, except that we could not understand their 
movements. They were represented as eight or nine persons ; on 
Friday there were thirteen. 

Broicn. There were more than that. 

Q. Where did you get arms ? A. \ bought tliem. 

Q. In what State? .4. That I will not state. 

Q. How many guns ? A. Two hundred Sliarpe's rifles and two 
hundred revolvers, — what is called the Massachusetts Arms Com- 
pany's revolvers, a little under navy size. 



568 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Q. Why did you not take that swivel you left in the house ? 
A. I had no occasion for it. It was given to nie a year or two 
ago. 

Q. In Kansas ? A. No. I had nothing given to me in Kansas. 

Q. By whom, and in what State? A. 1 decline to answer. It 
is not properly a swivel; it is a very large rifle with a pivot. The 
hall is larger than a musket ball; it is intended for a slug. 

lieporter. I do not wish to annoy you ; hut if you have anything 
further you would like to say, I will report it. 

Brown. I have nothing to say, only that I claim to he here in 
carrying out a measure I believe perfectly justifiable, and not to act 
the part of an incendiary or ruffian, but to aid those suffering great 
wrong. I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better — all you 
people at the South — prepare yourselves for a settlement of this 
question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are pre- 
pared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You may 
dispose of me very easily, — I am nearly disposed of now ; but this 
questir)n is still to be settled, — this negro question I mean ; the end 
of that is not yet. These wounds were inflicted upon me — both 
sabre cuts on my head and bayonet stabs in difl'erent parts of my 
Ijody — some minutes after I had ceased fighting and had consented to 
surrender, for the benefit of others, not for my own.^ I believe the 
Major would not have been alive ; I could have killed him just as 
easy as a mosquito when he came in, but I supposed he only came 
in to receive our surrender. There had been loud and long calls 
of " surrender" from us, — as loud as men could yell; but in the 
confusion and excitement I suppose we were not heard. I do not 
think the Major, or any one, meant to butcher us after we had 
surrendered. 

An Officer. Why did you not surrender before the attack ? 

Brown. I did not think it was my duty or interest to do so. We 
assured the priscniers that we did not wish to harm them, and they 
should be set at liberty. I exercised my best judgment, not believ- 
ing the people would wantonly sacrifice their own fellow- citizens, 
when we oftered to let them go on c<nidition of being allowed to 
change our position about a quarter of a mile. The prisoners agreed 
by a vote among themselves to pass across the bridge with us. We 

1 At the trial of Copeland the following evidence was given : — 

Mr. Sennott. You say that when BroWn was down you struck him in the face with 
your sabre ? 

Lieutenant Green. Yes. 

Q. This was after he was down? A. Yes ; he was down. 

y. How many times, Lieutenant Green, did you stril<e Brown in the face with your 
sabre after he was down ? A. Why, sir, he was defending Iiimself with his gun. 

Mr. Hunter. I hope the counsel for the defence will not press sxich questions as thete. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 569 

wanted them only as a sort of guarantee of our own safety, — that we 
sliould not he fired into. We took them, in the first jUaco, as host- 
ages and to keep ihem from doing any harm. We did kill some 
men in defending ourselves, hut I saw no one fire except directly in' 
self-defence. Our orders were strict not to harm any one not in arms 
against us. 

Q. Brown, suppose you had every nigger in the United States, 
wliat would you do with them ? A. Set them free. 

Q. Your intention was to carry them oiF and free them f A. Not 
at all. 

A Bystander. To set them free would sacrifice the life of every 
man in this community. 

Brown. I do not think so. 

Bystander. I know it. I think ycni are fanatical. 

Broivn. And I think you are fanatical. " Whom the gods would 
destroy they first make mad," and you are mad. 

Q. Was it your only ohject to free the negroes? A. Absolutely 
our only object. 

Q. But you demanded and took Colonel Washington's silver and 
watch ? A. Yes ; we intended freely to appropriate the property of 
slaveh(dders to carry out our object. It was for that, and only that, 
and with no design to enrich ourselves with any plunder whatever. 

Bystander. Did you know Sherrod in Kansas ? I understand you 
killed him. 

Brown. I killed no man except in fair fight. I fought at Black 
Jack Point and at Osawatomie ; and if I killed anybody, it was at 
one of these places. 

There is no record so full as this of any conversation held 
with Brown after his capture. We have notes and reports^ 
more or less conflicting, of what took place in his conversa- 
tion with Wise, the Governor of Virginia, a few hours after 
the engine-house was taken. Wise had been a leading and 
turbulent Congressman from Virginia, had belonged to more 
than one political party, and was a man of force and courage, 
though infatuated, like most Virginians of his time, with 
slavery and Southern institutions. A correspondent of 
" Harper's Weekly " (which was then supporting slavery 
as a pillar of the Union) has thus described Wise's inter- 
view with Brown : — 

" The mid-day train (October 18) brought Governor Wise, ac- 
companied by several hundred men from Richmond, Alexandria, 



570 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Baltimore, and elsewhere. Accoinpanied by Andrew Hunter, the 
Governor repaired to the guard-mom wliere the two wounded prison- 
ers lay, and hud a conversation with Brown. The Governor treated 
" the wounded man with a courtesy that evidently surprised him. 
Brown was lying upon the floor with his feet to the fire and his head 
propped uj)ou pillows on the back of a chair. His hair was a mass of 
clotted gore, so that I could not distinguish the original color; his eye 
a pale blue or gray, nose Roman, and beard (originally sandy) white 
and blood-stained. His speech was frecjuenlly interrupted by deep 
groans, reminding me of the agonize<l growl of a ferocious beast. A 
k'W feet from tlie leader Liy Stepliens, a fine-looking fellow, quiet, not 
in pain ap[iarently, and conversing in a voice as full and natural as if 
he were mihurt. However, his hands lay folded upon his breast in a 
child-like, helpless way, — a position tliat I observed was assumed 
by all those who had died or were dying of their wounds. Only those 
wh(j were shot stone-dead lay as they fell. 

"Brown was frank and communicative, answering all questions 
without reserve, except such as might imjilicate his associates. I 
append extracts from notes taken by Mr. ' Hunter : — 

" ' Brown avers that the small pamphlet, many copies of which were 
found on the persons of the slain, and entitled Provisional Constitution 
and Ordinances for the People of the United States, was prejiared prin- 
cipally by himself; under its provisions he was appointed Commander- 
in-Chief. His two sons and Stepliens were each captains, and Coppoc a 
lieutenant ; they each had commissions, issued by himself. He avers 
that the whole number operating under this organization was but twenty- 
two, each of whom had taken the oath re(pured by Article 48 ; but he con- 
fidently expected large reinforcements from Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, 
North and South Carolina, and several other Slave States, besides the Free 
States, — taking it for granted that it was only necessary to seize the pub- 
lic arms and ]ilace them in the hands of the negroes and non -slaveholders 
to recruit his forces indefinitely. In this calculation he reluctantly and 
indirectly admitted that he had been disappointed.' 

"When Governor AVise went away, some of us lingered, and the 
old man recurred again to his sons, of whom he had spoken several 
times, asking if we were sure they were both dead. He was assured 
that it was so. ' How many bodies did you take from the engine- 
house ?' he asked. He was told three. ' Then they are not both 
dead ; there were three dead bodies there last night. Gentlemen, 
my son is doubtless living and in your power. I will ask for him 
what I would not ask for myself; let him have kind treatment, for 
he is as pure and noble-hearted a youtli as ever breatlu'd the breatli 
of life.' His prayer was vain. Both his boys lay stark aud bh)ody 
by the Armory wall." 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 571 

In this conversation, according to Governor Wise, Brown 
(lid not say a word which was personally offensive to him. 
Somebody in the crowd called Brown " robber," and Brown 
retorted, " You [the slaveholders] are the robbers." And 
in this connection he said, " If you have your opinions 
about me, I have my opinions about you." Wise then said : 
'• Mv. Brown, the silver of your hair is reddened by the 
blood of crime, and you should eschew these hard words 
and think upon eternity. You are suffering from wounds, 
]>erhaps fatal ; and should you escape death from these 
causes, you must submit to a trial which may involve death. 
Your confessions justify the presumption that you will be 
found guilty ; and even now you are committing a felony 
under the laws of Virginia, by uttering sentiments like 
these. It is better you should turn your attention to your 
eternal future than be dealing in denunciations which can 
only injure you." Brown replied, "Governor, I have from 
all appearances not mof»e than fifteen or twenty years the 
start of you in the journey to that eternity of which you 
kindly warn me ; and whether my time here shall be fifteen 
months, or fifteen days, or fifteen hours, I am equally pre- 
pared to go. There is an eternity behind and an eternity 
before ; and this little speck in the centre, however long, is 
but comparatively a minute. The difference between your 
tenure and mine is trifling, and I therefore tell you to be 
prepared. I am prepared. You all have a heavy respon- 
sibility, and it behooves you to prepare more than it does 
me." 

In speaking of this conversation,^ Wise said publicly : 

" They are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a 
liundle of the best nerves I ever saw : cut and thrust and bleeding, 
and in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and 

1 A Virginian gives me this addition to Brown's conversation with 
Wise : — 

Jaiter. I see in the papers that you told Governor Wise you had promises of aid 
from Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carohnas. Is tliat true, or did you make it up to 
" rile " the old Governor? 

Brown. No ; I did not tell Wise that. 

Jailer. What did you tell him that could have made that impression on his mind ? 

Brnwn. Wise said something about fanaticism, and intimated that no man in full 
possession of his senses could have expected to overcome a State with such a handful 



572 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and 
it is but just to bim to say tbat he was humane to his prisoners, 
and he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of 
truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful, and 
intelligent. He professes to be a Christian in communion with the 
Congregational Cliurch of the North, and openly preaches his pur- 
pose of universal emancipation; and the negroes themselves were to 
be the agents, by means of arms, led on by white commanders. . . . 
Colonel Washington says that he was the cooUest and firmest 
man he ever saw in defying danger and death. With one son 
dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his 
dying son with one hand, held his rifie with the other, and com- 
manded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to 
be firm, and to sell their lives as dearly as they could." 

brown's speeches at his teial. 

On the first day of his trial under indictment (October 
25), in the coitrt-house at Charlesi;own not far from Har- 
per's Ferry, Brown and Coppoc were brought in manacled 
together. ]3rown appeared weak, haggard, and with eyes 
swollen from the effects of the wound in his head. The 
prisoners were severally charged with treason and murder. 
The Court asked if they had counsel, when Brown spoke as 
follows : — 

"I did not ask for any quarter at the time I was taken; I did not 
ask to have my life spared. The Governor of the State of Virginia 
tendered me assurances that I should have a fair trial ; but under no 

of men as I had, backed only by stnif^gling negroes ; and I replied that I had prom- 
ises of ample assistance, and would li.ive received it too if I conld only have put the 
ball in motion. He then asked suddenly and in a harsh voice, as you 've seen lawyers 
snap up a witness : "Assistance ! Fmin what State, sir?" I was not thrown off my 
guard, and replied : " From more than you 'd believe if I should name them all ; but I 
expected more from Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas than from any others." 

Jailer. You " expected " it. You did not say it was promised from the States 
named ? 

Brown. No ; I knew, of course, that the negroes would rally to my standard. If I 
had only got the thing fairly started, you Virginians would have seen sights that would 
have opened your eyes ; and I tell you if I was free this moment, and had five hundred 
negroes around me, I would put these irons on \V9e liiraself l>efore Sat.uniay niglit 

Jailer. Then it was ti-ue about aid being promised ? What States i)romised it ? 

Brown {with a laugh). Well, you are about as smart a man as Wise, and I '11 give 
you the same answer I gave him. 

So far as the language goes, this i.s |ierhaps not very correctly reported, 
being from memory and at second hand. 



1859.] THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 573 

circumstances whatever shall I be able to have a fair trial. If you 
seek my blood, you can have it at any moment, without this mockery 
of a trial. I have had no counsel. I have not been able to advise 
with auy one. I know nothing about the feelings of my fellow- 
prisoners, and am utterly uuable to attend in any way to my own 
defence. My memory does n't serve me ; my healtli is insufficient 
although improving. There are mitigating circumstanc'es that I 
would urge in our favor, if a fair trial is to be had; but if we are to 
be forced with a mere form, a trial for execution, you might spare 
yourselves that trouble. I am ready for my fate. I beg for no 
mockery of a trial, no insult, — nothing but that which conscience 
gives or cowardice drives you to practise. I ask again to be excused 
from the mockery of a trial. I do not even know wliat the special 
design of this examination is ; I do not know what is to be the 
benefit of it to the Commonwealth. I have now little further to ask, 
other than that I may not be foolishly insulted, only as cowardly 
barbarians insult those who fall into their power." 

As the trial went on, Brown again rose from the pallet 
on which he lay wounded, and said : — 

" I do not intend to detain the Court, but barely wish to say, as I 
have been promised a fair trial, that I am not now in circumstances 
that enable me to attend to a trial, owing to the state of iny health. 
I have a severe wound in the back, or rather in one kidney, whicli 
enfeebles me very much. But I am doing well, and I only ask for 
a short delay of my trial, and I think I may get able to listen to it ; 
and I merely ask this, that, as the saying is, ' the devil may have 
his dues,' — no more. I wish to say, further, that my hearing is 
impaired and rendered indistinct, in consequence of Wounds I have 
about my head. I cannot hear distinctly at all. I could not hear 
what the Court said this morning. I would be glad to hear what 
is said on my trial, and I am now doing better than I could expect to 
be under the circumstances. A very short delay would be all I would 
ask. I do not presume to ask more than a very short delay, so that 
I may in some degree recover, and be able at least to listen to my 
trial, and hear what questions are asked of the citizens, and what 
their answers are. If that could be allowed me, I should feel very 
much obliged." 

The Court refused his requests, and a jury having been 
sworn, directed that the prisoner might forego the form of 
standing while arraigned, if he desired it. He therefore 
continued to lie prostrate on his cot-bed while the long 



574 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

indictment was read, — for conspiring witli negroes to pro- 
duce insurrection ; for treason to the Commonwealth, and 
for murder. 

In the course of the first day's proceedings, Brown rose, 
evidently excited, and standing on his feet said : — 

" May it please the Court, — I discover that, notwithstanding all 
the assertions I have received of a fair trial, nothing hlie a fair trial 
is to be given me, as it would seem. I gave the names, as soon as I 
could get at theui, of tlie persons I wished to have called as witnesses, 
and was assured that they would be subpoenaed. I wrote down a 
memorandum to that effect, saying where those parties were, but it 
appears that they have not been subpoenaed, so far as I can learn. 
And now I ask if I am to have anything at all deserving the name and 
shadow of a fair trial, thU this proceeding be deferred until to-mor- 
row morning ; for I have no counsel, as I have before stated, in whom 
I feel that I can rely, hut I am in hopes counsel may arrive who will 
see that I get the witnesses necessary for my defence. I am myself 
unable to attend to it. I have given all the attention I possibly 
could to it, but am unable to see or know about them, and can't even 
find out their names ; and I have nobody to do any errand, for my 
money was all taken from me when I was hacked and stabbed, and I 
have not a dime. I had two hundred and fifty or sixty dollars in 
gold and silver taken from *ny pocket, and now I have no possible 
means of getting anybody to go any errands for me, and I have not 
had all the witnesses subpoenaed. They are not within reach, and 
are not here. T ask at least until to-morrow morning to have some- 
thing done, jl anything is designed. If not, I am ready for anything 
that may come up." 

Brown then lay down again, drew his blanket over him, 
closed his eyes, and appeared to sink in tranquil slumber. 
The day after, when insanity was pleaded in his defence, 
he desired his counsel to say that he did not put in the 
plea of insanity. This movement was made without his 
approbation or concurrence, and Avas unknown to him till 
then. He then raised himself up in bed, and said : — 

" I will add, if the Court will allow me, that I look upon it as a 
miserable artifice and pretext of those wlio ouijht to take a different 
course in regard to me, if they took any at all, and I view it with 
contempt more than otherwise. As I remarked to Mr. Green, insane 
prisoners, so far as my experience goes, have but little ability to 
judge of their own sanity ; and if I am insane, of course I should 



1859.1 THE FORAY IN VIRGINIA. 575 

think I knew more than all the rest of the world. But I do not 
think so. I am perfectly unconscious of insanity, and I reject, so 
far as I am capable, any attempts to interfere in my behalf on that 
score." 

Brown was ably defended, among others, by a young 
IVIassachusetts attorney, George H. Hoyt, but of course 
was convicted. The prosecutor was Andrew Hunter, of 
Charlestown, who in his argument 

" Contended that the code of Virginia defines citizens of Virginia as 
' all those white persons born in any other State of this Union, who 
may become residents here ; ' and that evidence shows without a 
shadow of a question that when Brown went to Virginia, and planted 
his feet at Harper's Ferry, he came there to reside, and to hold the 
place permanently. True, he occupied a farm four or five miles off 
in Maryland, but not for the legitimate purpose of establishing his 
domicil there ; no, for the nefarious and liellish purpose of rallying 
forces into this Commonwealth, and establishing himself at Harper's 
Ferry, as the starting-point for a new government. Whatever it was, 
whetlier tragical, or farcial and ridiculous, as Brown's counsel had 
presented it, his conduct showed, if his declarations were insufficient, 
that it was not alone for the purpose of carrying oft' slaves that he 
came there. His ' Provisional Government ' was a real thing and 
no debating society, as his counsel would have us believe; and in 
holding office under it and exercising its functions, he was clearly 
guilty of treason. As to conspiring with slaves and rebels, the law 
says the prisoners are equally guilty, whether insurrection is made or 
not. Advice may be given by actions as well as wor^. When you 
put pikes in the hands of slaves, and have their master captive, that 
is advice to slaves to rebel, and is punishable with death." 

During most of the arguments Brown lay on his back, 
with his eyes closed. When the verdict was read, '^ Guilty 
of treason, and of conspiring and advising with slaves and 
others to rebel, and of murder in the first degree," not 
the slightest sound was heard in the crowd present, who 
a moment before, outside the court, had joined in threats 
and imprecations. Brown himself said not a word, but as 
on any previous day tifrned to adjust his pallet, and then 
composedly stretched himself upon it. A motion for an 
arrest of judgment was put in, but counsel on both sides 
being too much exhausted to go on, Brown was removed 
unsentenced to prison. 



576 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 

OF all the work done by this hero in behalf of the slave 
throughout a life almost wholly devoted to emancipa- 
tion, none was so wonderful as that wrought by him in 
prison and on the scaffold. History seeks in vain for par- 
allels to this achievement, — a defeated, dying old man, 
who had been praying and fighting, pleading and toiling, 
for years, to persuade a great people that their national life 
was all wrong, suddenly converting millions to his cause by 
the silent magnanimity or the spoken wisdom of his last 
days as a fettered prisoner. For Brown was not figuratively 
and rhetorically in chains during that period of frenzied ter- 
ror which lay between his capture of Harper's Ferry, Octo- 
ber 16, and his death at Charlestown, Dec. 2, 1859. He 
was loaded with chains, hand and foot ; he was fastened to 
the floor of his cell, and watched day and night by armed 
men, whose instructions were to kill him if he should have 
any, the most remote, chance of escape. He was forced to 
rise from what was feared to be his dying bed, to hear the 
ferocious indictment against him recited ; and during the 
most of his trial he lay on a pallet in the court-room. But 
that Divine Wisdom which he adored, and whose purposes 
he alone, of living or dying men, could best fulfil, was his 
guide and his guard ; from the hand which had armed him 
with sword and rifle he now received that sword of the 
Spirit, heavenly in temper and in^Dower, which won for 
him his final victory. 

" For in all things, L(ird ! Thon didst mngnify Thy servant, 
and glorify him ; neither didst Thon lightly regard him, but didst 
assist him in c'""" time and place. When nnrighteoiis men tlionght 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 577 

to oppress this righteous one in prison, they themselves, the pris- 
oners of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long night, 
lay there exiled from the Eternal Providence. Yea, the tasting of 
death touched the righteous also ; but then the blameless man made 
haste, and stood forth to defend them ; and bringing the shield of his 
proper ministry, even prayer and propitiation, set himself against the 
wrath, and brcjught the calamity to an end. Declaring himself Thy 
servant, he overcame the destroyer, not with the strength of body or 
the force of arms ; but with a word subdued he him that punished, 
alleging the oaths and covenants made with the fathers. 

•' This was he whom we had sometime in derision and a proverb 
of reproach ; we, fools, accounted his life madness, and his end to be 
without honor. But how is he numbered among the children of 
God ! His lot is among the saints. In the sight of the unwise he 
seemed to die ; and his departure was taken for misery, his going 
from us to be utter destruction. But he is in peace. Though he 
be punished in the sight of men, yet is his hope full of immortality ; 
and having been a little chastised, he shall be greatly rewarded. 

" God proved him and found him worthy of Himself; he shall 
judge the nations, and have dominion over the people ; and his Lord 
shall reign forever." 

These words of an old Scripture, long disregarded, were 
found true of John Brown, — literally and exactly fulfilled, 
like the computations of the astronomer. And who shall 
doubt that there is an astronomy for the period of great 
souls, as for the stars in their courses, — a lore which the 
devout may learn, if they will but obey ? Tk> this John 
Brown had meekly schooled his imperious will ; and no- 
where in history do we find a more punctual submission to 
the Divine purpose, a more perfect resignation and com- 
posure, than this headstrong old warrior now displayed. 
Then appeared, what had before been but little regarded, 
the strange power and pathos of his unschooled words. 
His speech to the Court was the first great example of this, 
although his replies to Mason and Wise of Virginia had 
already taught the world to listen for every sentence he 
uttered. "What avail -all your scholarly accomplishments 
and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood ? " said 
Thoreau, speaking of John Brown. "To omit his other be- 
havior, see what a work this comparatively unread and unlet- 
tered man wrote within six weeks ! He wrote in prison, not 

37 



578 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

a ' History of the World,' like Kaleigh, but an American 
book which I think will live longer than that. What a va- 
riety of themes he touched on in that short space ! " It is 
the virtue of such writings that they continue to influence 
mankind forever, so long as they continue to be read ; and 
we may predict for these prison letters as long a life as for 
the " Apology " of Socrates and the dying address to his 
disciples. But what a work they have accomplished al- 
ready, in the few brief years since John Brown was borne 
from the scaffold in Charlestown to his resting-place beside 
the great rock at North Elba, where the grave became his 
stronghold, while " his soul went marching on ! " Those 
who mourned his death, now finding him risen and trium- 
phant, may exclaim with Milton's Hebrews, after that 
"last victory of Samson" which Brown had foretold for 
himself : — 

" All is best, though we oft doubt 
What the unsearchable dispose 
Of highest wisdom brings about, 
And ever best found in the close. 
Oft He seems to hide His face, 
But unexpectedly returns, 
And to His faithful champion hath in place 
Borne witness gloriously ; whence Gaza mourns, 
And all that band them to resist 
His uncontrollable intent. 
IJis servants He, with new acquist 
Of true experience from this great event, 
With peace and consolation hath dismissed. 
And calm of mind, all passion spent." 



PRISON LETTERS AND SPEECHES. 
Letter to Judge RiisseU, of Boston.^ 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Oct. 21, 1859. 
Hon. Thomas Russell. 

Dear Sir, — I am here a prisoner, with several sabre-cuts iu my 
head and bayonet-stabs in my body. j\ly object in writing to you is 
to obtain able and faithful counsel for myself aud fellow-prisoners 

1 A copy of this letter was also sent to Reuben A. Chapman, of Sining- 
field, Mass., and a third to Daniel R. Tild'-n, of Ohio. 



1859.1 



JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 579 



(five in all), as we have the faith of Virginia pledged through her 
Governor and numerous other prominent citizens to give us a fair 
trial. Without we can obtain such counsel from without the slave 
States, neither the facts in our case can come before the world, nor 
can we have the benefit of such facts as miglit be considered miti- 
gating in the view of others upon our trial. I have money in hand 
here to the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars, and personal 
property sufficient to pay a most liberal fee to yourself, or to any 
suitable man who will undertake our defence, if I can be allowed the 
benefit of said property. Can you or some other good man come on 
inunediately, for the sake of the young men prisoners at least? My 
wounds are doing well. Do not send an ultra Abolitionist. 
Very respectfully yours, 

John Brown. 

Indorsed, " The trial is set for Wednesday next, the 25th inst. — 
J. W. Campbell, Sheriff of Jefferson County y 

To his Family. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Oct. 31, 1859. 
My dear Wife and Children, every one, — I suppose you 
have learned before this by the newspapers that two weeks ago to- 
day we were fighting for our lives at Harper's Ferry; that during 
the fight Watson was mortally wounded, Oliver killed, William 
Thompson killed, and Dauphin slightly wounded ; that on the fol- 
lowing day I was taken prisoner, inuTiediately after which I received 
several sabre-cuts on my head and bayonet-stabs in my body. As 
nearly as I can learn, Watson died of his wound on Wednesday, the 
second — or on Thursday, the third — day after I w^as taken. Dauphin 
was killed when I was taken, and Anderson I suppose also. I have 
since been tried, and found guilty of treason, etc., and of murder in 
the first degree. I have not yet received my sentence. No others of 
the company with whom you were acquainted were, so fiir as T can 
learn, either killed or taken. Under all these terrible calamities, I 
feel quite cheerful in the assurance that God reigns and will overrule 
all for his ghjry and the best possible good. I feel no consciousness 
of guilt in the matter, nor even mortification on account of my im- 
prisonment and irons; and I feel perfectly sure that very soon no 
member of my family will feel any possible disposition to " blush on 
my account." Already dear friends at a distance, with kindest sym- 
pathy, are cheering me with the assurance that posterity, at least, 
will do me justice. I shall commend you all together, with my be- 
loved but bereaved daughters-in-law, to their sympathies, which I 



680 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

do not doubt will soon reach you. I also commend you all to Him 
"whose mercy endureth forever," — to the God of my fathers, "whose 
I am, and whom I serve." " He will never leave you nor forsake 
you," unless you forsake Him. Finally, my dearly beloved, be of 
good comfort. Be sure to remember and follow my advice, and my 
example too, so far as it has been consistent with the holy religion 
of Jesus Christ, — in which I remain a most firm and humble be- 
liever. Never forget the poor, nor think anything you bestow on 
them to be lost to you, even though they may be black as Ebedme- 
lech, the Ethiopian eunuch, who cared for Jeremiah in the pit of the 
dungeon ; or as black as the one to whom Philip preached Christ- 
Be sure to entertain strangers, for thereby some have — " Remem- 
ber them that are in bonds as bound with them." 

I am in charge of a jailer like the one who took charge of Paul 
and Silas ; and you may rest assured that both kind hearts and kind 
faces are more or less about me, while thousands are thirsting for 
my blood. " These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, 
shall work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." I hope to be able to write you again. Copy this, lluth, 
and send it to your sorrow-stricken brothers to comfort thein. "Write 
me a few words in regard to the welfare of all. God Almighty bless 
you all, and make you "joyful in the midst of all your tribulations ! " 
Write to John Brown. Charlestown, Jeiferson County, Va., care of 
Captain John Avis. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Nov. 3, 1859. 

P. S. Yesterday, November 2, I was sentenced to be hanged on 
December 2 next. Do not grieve on my account. I am still quite 
cheerful. God bless you ! Yours ever, 

John Brown. 

To Mrs. Child. 

October 31. 
Mrs. L. Maria Child. 

My dear Friend, — such you prove to be, though a stranger, — 
Your most kind letter has reached me, with the kind offer to come 
here and take care of me. Allow me to express my gratitude for 
your great sympathy, and at the same time to propose to you a dif- 
ferent course, together with my reasons for wishing it. I should 
certainly be greatly pleased to become i>ersonally acquainted with 
one so gifted and so kind ; but I cannot avoid seeing some objections 
to it under present circumstances. First, I am in charge f>f a most 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 581 

humane gentleman, who with his family have rendered me every 
possible attention I have desired or that could be of the least advan- 
tage ; and I am so far recovered from my wounds as no longer to re- 
quire nursing. Then, again, it would subject you to great personal 
inconvenience and heavy expense, without doing me any good. Al- 
low me to name to you another channel through which you may 
reach me with your sympathies much more effectually. I have at 
home a wife and three young daughters, the youngest but little over 
five years old, the oldest nearly sixteen. T have also two daughters- 
in-law, whose husbands have both fallen near me here. There is 
also another widow, Mrs. Thompson, whose husband feU here. 
Whether she is a mother or not I cannot say. All these, my wife 
included, live at North Elba, Essex County, N. Y. I have a middle- 
aged son, who has been in some degree a cripple from his childhood, 
who would have as much as he could well do to earn a living. He 
was a most dreadful sufferer in Kansas, and lost all he had laid up. 
He has iTot enough to clothe himself for the winter comfortably. 
I have no living son or son-in-law who did not suffer terribly in 
Kansas. 

Now, dear friend, would you not as soon contribute fifty cents now, 
and a like sum yearly, for the relief of those very poor and deeply 
afflicted persons, to enable them to su))ply themselves and their chil- 
dren with bread and very plain clothing, and to enable the children 
to receive a common English education ? Will you also devote your 
own energies to induce others to join you in giving' a like amount, 
to constitute a little fund for the purpose named ? 

I cannot see how your coming here can do me the least good ; and 
I am quite certain you can do me immense good where you are. I 
am quite cheerful under all my afflicting circumstances and prospects; 
having, as I humbly trust, "the peace of God, which passeth all 
understanding," to rule in my heart. You may make such use of 
this as you see fit. God Almighty bless and reward you a thousand- 
fold ! Yours in sincerity and truth, 

John Brown. 

Letter from a Quaker Lady to John Brown. 

Newport, R. I., Tenth Month, 27th, '59. 
Captain John Brown. 

Dear Friend, — Since thy arrest I have often thought of thee, 
and have wished that, like Elizabeth Fry toward her {)rison friends, 
so I might console thee in thy confinement. But that can never be ; 
and so I can only write thee a few lines which, if they contain any 
comfort, may come to thee like some little ray of light. 



582 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

You can never know how very many dear Friends love thee with 
all their hearts for thy brave efforts in hehalf of the poor oppressed ; 
and though we, who are non-resistants, and religiously believe it 
better to reform by moral and not by carnal weapons, could not ap- 
prove of bloodshed, yet we know thee was animated by the most 
generous and philanthropic motives. Very many thousands openly 
approve thy intentions, though most Friends would not think it right 
to take up arms. Thousands pray for thee every day ; and oh, I do 
pray that God will be with thy soul. Posterity will do thee justice. 
If Moses led out the thousands of Jewish slaves from their bondage, 
and God destroyed the Egyptians in the sea because they went after 
the Israelites to bring them back to slavery, then surely, by the same 
reasoning, we may judge thee a deliverer who wished to release mil- 
lions from a more cruel oppression. If the American people honor 
Washington for resisting with bloodshed for seven years an unjust 
tax, how much more ought thou to be honored for seeking to free the 
poor slaves. 

Oh, I wish I could plead for thee as some of the other sex can 
plead, how I would seek to defend thee ! If I had now the eloquence 
of Portia, how I would turn the scale in thy favor ! But I can only 
pray "God bless thee!" God pardon thee, and through our Re- 
deemer give thee safety and happiness now and always ! 
From thy friend, 

E. B. 

John Broivji^s Reply. 

Charlestowx, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 1, 1859. 

My dear Friend E. B. of R. I., — Your most cheering letter of 
the 27th of October is received ; and may the Lord reward you a 
thousandfold for the kind feeling you express toward me ; but more 
especially for your fidelity to the " poor that cry, and those that have 
no help." For this I am a prisoner in bonds. It is solely my own 
fault, in a military point of view, that we met with our disaster. T 
mean that I mingled with our prisoners and so far sympathized with 
them and their families that I neglected my duty in other respects. 
But God's will, not mine, be done. 

You know that Christ once armed Peter. So also in Tny case I 
think he put a sword into my hand, and there continued it so long as 
he saw best, and then kindly took it from me. I mean when I first 
went to Kansas. I wish you could know with what cheerfulness I 
am now wielding the " sword of the Spirit" on the right hand and 
on the left. I bless God that it proves " mighty to the pulling down 
of strongholds." I always loved my Quaker friends, and I conunend 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 683 

to their kind regard my poor bereaved widowed wife and my daugh- 
ters and daughters-in-law, whose husbands fell at my side. One is 
a mother and the other likely to become so soon. They, as well as 
my own sorrow-stricken daughters, are left very poor, and have much 
greater need of sympathy than I, who, through Infinite Grace and 
the kindness of strangers, am "joyful in all my tribulations." 

Dear sister, write them at North Elba. Essex County, N. Y., to 
comfort their sad hearts. Direct to Mary A. Brown, wife of John 
Brown. There is also another — a widow, wife of Thompson, who 
fell with my poor boys in the affair at Harper's Ferry — at the same 
place. 

I do not feel conscious of guilt in taking up arms ; and had it been 
in behalf of the rich and powerful, the intelligent, the great (as men 
count greatness), or those who fonri enactments to suit themselves 
and corrupt others, or some of their friends, that I interfered, suffered, 
sacrificed, and fell, it would have been doing very well. But enough 
of this. These light afflictions, which endure for a moment, shall but 
work for me " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." I 
would be very grateful for another letter from you. My wounds are 
healing. Farewell. God will surely attend to his own cause in the 
best possible way and time, and he will not forget the work of his 
own hands. Your friend, 

John Brown. 

An Appeal. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 1, 1859. 
To MY Friends in New England and elsewhere, — Aaron 
D. Stephens, one of the prisoners now in confinement with me in 
this place, is desirous of obtaining the assistance of George Sennott, 
Esq., of Boston, Mass., in defending him on his trial to come off 
before the United States Court. Anything you can do toward 
securing the services of Mr. Seunott for the prisoner will add to the 

many obligations of your humble servants. 

John Brown. 

The above contains the expression of my own wishes. 

A. D. Stephens. 

When brought into court, the day after his conviction, 
to receive his sentence, Brown was taken by surprise at 
being called on to say why sentence of death should not be 
pronounced. He had expected some further delay, and 
was unprepared at the moment. He rose, however, and in 
a singularly mild and gentle manner made his famous plea. 



684 LITE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

in which we may recognize some of the phrases he had 
used in his letters : — 

JOHN^ brown's last SPEECH (nOV. 2). 

" I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say. 

" In the first place, I deuy everything hut what I have all along 
admitted, — the design on my part to free tiie slaves. I intended cer- 
tainly to have made a clean tiling of that matter, as I did last winter, 
when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snap- 
ping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and 
finally left thera in Canada. I designed to have done the same 
thing again, on a larger scale.^ That was all I intended. I never 
did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to 
excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. 

" I have anotlier objection : and that is, it is unjust that I should 
suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I ad- 
mit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truth- 
fulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have 
testified in this case), — had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the 
powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of 
their friends, — either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or chil- 
dren, or any of that class, — and suffered and sacrificed what I have 
in this interference, it would liave been all right ; and every man 
in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather 
than punishment. 

1 In explanation of this passage, Brown three weeks afterward handed 
to Mr. Hunter this letter :• — 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va. , Nov. 22, 1S.59. 

Dear Sir, — I have just had my attention called to a seeming confliction between 
the statement I at first made to Governor Wise and that wliioh I made at the time 1 
received my sentence, regarding my intentions respecting the slaves we tool< about the 
Ferry. There need be no such confliction, and a few words of explanation will, I 
think, be quite sufficient. I had given Governor Wise a full and particular account of 
that; and when called in court to say whether I had anything further to urge, I was 
taken wholly by surprise, as I did not expect my sentence before the others. In the 
hurry of the moment I forgot much that I had b:-fore intended to say, and did not con- 
sider the full bearing of what I then said. I intended to convey this idea, — that it was 
my object to place the slaves in a condition to defend their liberties, if they would, with- 
out any bloodshed ; but not that I intended to run them out of the slave States. I was 
not aware of any such apparent confliction until my attention was called to it, and I do 
not suppose that a man in my then circumstances should be superhuman in respect to 
the exact purport of every word he might utter. What I said to Governor Wise was spo- 
ken with all the deliberation I was master of, and was intended for truth ; and what I 
said in court was equally intended for truth, but required a more full exjjlanation than 
I then gave. Please make such use of this as you thinlc calculated to correct any wrong 
impressions I may have given. Very respectfully yours, 

John Bbown. 

Andrew Hunter, Esq., Present. 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 585 

" This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of 
God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or 
at least the New Testament. Tliat teaches me that all things 
whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so 
to them. It teaches me, further, to ' remember them that are in 
bonds, as bound with them.' I endeavored to act up to that instruc- 
tion. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any re- 
specter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done 
— as I have always freely admitted I have done — in behalf of His 
despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed 
uecessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the 
ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of niy 
children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose 
rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, — 
I submit ; so let it be done ! 

" Let me say one word further. 

" I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my 
trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous 
than I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated 
from the first what was my intention, and what was not. I never 
had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to 
commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insur- 
rection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discour- 
aged any idea of that kind. 

" Let me say, also, a word in regard to the statements made by 
some of those connected with me. I hear it has been stated by some 
of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is 
true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weak- 
ness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, 
and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of 
them I never saw, and never had a word of c(mversation with, till the 
day tliey came to me ; and that was for the purpose I have stated. 

" Now I have done." 

Brown was then taken from the court-room back to his 
prison, where he continued to recover from his wounds, but 
did not write many letters until a week after his conviction. 
He then wrote first to his family, as follows : — 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 8, 1859. 
Dear Wife and Children, every one, —I will begin by say- 
ing that I have in some degree recovered from my wounds, but that 
I am quite weak in my back and sore about my left kidney. My 



58G LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

appetite has been quite good for most of the time since I was hurt. 
I am supplied with almost everything I could desire to make me 
comfortable, and the little I do lack (some articles of clothing which 
I lost) I may perhaps soon get again. I am, besides, quite cheerful, 
having (as I trust) "the peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing," to " rule in my heart," and the testimony (in some degree) 
of a good conscience that I have not lived altogether in vain. I can 
trust God with both the time and the manner of my death, believing, 
as I now do, that for me at this time to seal my testimony for God 
and humanity with my blood will do vastly more toward advancing 
the cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote, than all I have 
done in my life before. I beg of you all meekly and quietly to sub- 
mit to this, not feeling youi-selves in the least degraded on that 
account. Remember, dear wife and children all, that Jesus of Naza- 
reth suffered a most excruciating death on the cross as a felon, under 
the most aggravating circumstances. Think also of the prophets and 
apostles and Christians of former days, who went through greater 
tribulations than you or I, and try to be reconciled. May God 
Almighty comfort all your hearts, and soon wipe away all tears from 
your eyes! To him be endless praise! Think, too, of the crushed 
millions who " have no comforter." I charge you all never in your 
trials to forget the griefs " of the poor that cry, and of those that 
have none to help them." I wrote most earnestly to my dear and 
afflicted wife not to come on for the present, at any rate. I will now 
give her my reasons for doing so. First, it would use up all the 
scanty means she has, or is at all likely to have, to make herself and 
children comfortable hereafter. For let me tell you that the sym- 
pathy that is now aroused in your behalf may not always ftdlow you. 
There is but little more of the romantic about helping poor widows 
and their children than there is about trying to relieve poor " nig- 
gers." Again, the little comfort it might afford us to meet again 
would be dearly bought by the pains of a final separation. We must 
part ; and I feel assured for us to meet under such dreadful circum- 
stances would only add to our distress. If she comes on here, she 
must be only a gazing-stock throughout the whole journey, to be re- 
marked upon in every look, word, and action, and by all sorts of 
creatures, and by all sorts of papers, throughout the whole country. 
Again, it is my most decided judgment that in quietly and submis- 
sively staying at home vastly more of generous sympathy will reach 
her, without such dreadful sacrifice of feeling as she must ])Ut up 
with if she comes on. The visits of one or two female friends that 
have come on here have produced great excitement, which is very 
annoying ; and they cannot oossibly do me any good. Oh, Mary ! 
do not come, but patiently wait for the meeting of those who love 



1859.] JOHN BROWX IX PRISON. 587 

God aud their fellow-ineu, where no separation must follow. " They 
shall go no more out forever." I greatly long to hear from some 
one of you, and to learu anything that in any way afi'ects your wel- 
fare. I sent you ten dollars the oiher day ; did you get it ? I 
have also endeavored to stir up Christian friends to visit and write to 
you in your deep afHiction. I have uo douht that some of them, at 
least, will heed the call. Write to me, care of Captain John Avis, 
Charlestowu, Jefferson County, Virginia. 

''Finally, my heloved, be of good comfort." May all your names 
he " written in the Lamb's book of life ! " — may you all have the 
purifying and sustaining influence of the Christian religion ! — is the 
earnest prayer of 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 
Nov. 9. 

P. S. I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the 
coming day, nor a storm so furious or dreadful as to prevent the re- 
turn of warm sunshine and a cloudless sky. But, beloved ones, do 
remember that this is not your rest, — that in this world you have 
no abiding place or continuing city. To God and his infinite mercy 
I always commend you. 

J. B. 

To Mrs. Spring} 

Charlestown, Jeffehson County, Va., Nov. 8, 1859. 
Mrs. Rebecca B. Spuing. 

My dear Friend, — When you get home, please enclose this to 
Mrs. John Brown, North Elba, Essex County, N. Y. It will com- 
fort her broken heart to know that I received it. Captain Avis will 
kindly let you see what I have written her. May tlie God of my 
fathers bless and reward you a thousandfold ; and may all yours be 
partakers of his infinite grace ! 

Yours ever, 

John Brown. 

Nov. 9. 
P. S. Will try to write you at your home. I forgot to acknowl- 
edge the receipt of your bounty. It is hard for me to write, on 
account of my lameness. 

Yours in truth, 

J. B. 

1 " Written by John Brown on the back of a note sent by him to Mrs. 
Marcus Spring. This note and indorsement is now in my possession." — 
James freemcin Clarke, January, 1883, 



588 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. (1859. 

To his Brother, Jeremiah Brown. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 12, 1859. 
Dear brother Jeremiah, — Your kind letter of the 9th inst. is 
received, and also one from Mr. Tilden ; for both of which I am 
greatly obliged. You inquire, " Can I do anything for you or your 
fatnily ? " I would answer that my sons, as well as my wife and 
daughters, are all very poor ; and that anything that may hereafter be 
due me fr<im my fatlier's estate I wish paid to them, as I will en- 
deavor hereafter to describe, without legal formalities to consume it 
all. One of my boys has been so entirely used up as very likely to 
be in want of comfortable clothing for the winter. I have, through 
the kindness of friends, fifteen dollars to send him, which I will re- 
mit shortly. If you know where to reacli him, please send him that 
amount at once, as I shall remit the same to you by a safe convey- 
ance. If I had a plain statement from Mr. Thompson of the state of 
my accounts with the estate of my father, I should then better know 
what to say about that matter. As it is, I have not the least mem- 
orandum left me to refer to. If Mr. Thompson will make me a 
statement, and charge my dividend fully for his trouble, I would be 
greatly obliged to him. In that case you can send me any remarks 
of your own. I am gaining in health slowly, and am quite cheerful 
in view of my approaching end, — being fully persuaded that I am 
wortli inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose. God 
Almighty bless and save you all ! 

Your affectionate brother, John Brown. 

November 13. 
P. S. Say to my poor boys never to grieve for one moment on 
my account ; and should many of you live to see the time when you 
will not blush to own your relation to Old John Brown, it will not 
be more strange than many things that have happened. I feel a 
thousand times more on account of my sorrowing friends than on my 
own account. So far as I am concerned, I " count it all joy." " I 
have fought the good fight," and have, as I trust, " finished my 
course." Please show this to any of my family that you may see. 
My love to all ; and may God, in his infinite^ mercy, for Christ's 
sake, bless and save you all! 

Your affectionate brother, J. Brown. 

To George Adams, Boston. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 15, 1859. 
My dear Sir, — Your kind mention of some things in my con- 
duct here which you approve is very comforting, indeed, to my 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PEISON. 589 

miud. Yet I am conscious that you do me no more than justice. I 
do certainly feel that through Divine grace I have endeavored to be 
" faithful in a few things," mingling with even these niuch of im- 
perfection. I am certainly " unworthy even to suffer affliction with 
the people of God ; " yet in infinite grace he has thus honored 
me. May the same grace enable me to serve him in a " new obedi- 
ence" through my little remainder of this life, and to rejoice in him 
forever. I cannot feel tliat God will suffer even tlie poorest service 
we may any of us render him or his cause to be lost or in vain. I 
do feel, dear brother, that I am wonderfully '* strengtiiened from on 
high." May I use that strength in " showing His strength unto this 
generation," and His power to every one tliat is to come ! I am most 
grateful for your assurance that my poor, shattered, heart-brolcen 
family will not be forgotten. I have long tried to recommend them 
to " the God of my fathers." I have many opportunities for faithful 
plain-dealing with the more powerful, influential, and intelligent 
classes in this region, which I trust are not entirely misimproved. I 
humbly trust that I firmly believe that " God reigns," and I think I 
can truly say, " Let the earth n^ioice! " May God take care of his 
own cause, 4ind of his own great name, as well as of those who love 
their neighbors. Farewell ! Yours in truth, 

John Brown 

To his Old Teacher. 

Charlestowx, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 15, 1859. 

Rev. H. L. Vaill. 

My dear, steadfast Friend, — Your most kind and most 
welcome letter of the 8th inst. reached me in due time, I am very 
grateful for all the good feeling you express, and also for the kind 
counsels you give, together with your prayers in my behalf. Allow 
me here to say, notwithstanding " my soul is among lions," still I 
believe that " God in very deed is with me." Y<>a will not, tliere- 
fore, feel surprised when I tell you that I am "joyful in all my trib- 
ulations ; " that I do not feel cxmdemned of Him whose judgment is 
just, nor of my own conscience. Nor do I feel degraded by my im- 
prisonment, my chains, or prospect of the gallows. I have not 
only been (though utterly unworthy) permitted to '' suffer affliction 
with God's people," but have also had a great many rare oppor- 
tunities for " preaching righteousness in the great congregation." I 
trust it will not all be lost. Tlie jailer (in whose charge I am) and 
his family and assistants have all been most kind ; and notwith- 
standing he was one of the bravest of all who fought me, he is now 
being abused for his humanity. So far as my observation goes, none 
but brave men are likely to be humane to a fallen foe. " Cowards 



590 LIFE AN13 LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

prove their courage by their ferocity." It may be clone iu that way 
with but little risk. 

I wish I could write you about a few only of the interesting times 
I here experience with different classes of men, clergymen among 
others. Christ, the great captain of liberty as well as of salvation, 
and who began his .mission, as foretold of him, by proclaiming it, 
saw fit to take from me a sword of steel after I had carried it for a 
time ; but he has put another in my hand (" the sword of the 
Spirit"), and I pray God to make me a faithful soldier, wherever he 
may send me, not less on the scaffold than when surrounded by my 
warmest sympathizers. 

My dear old friend, I do assure you I have not fcn-gotten our last 
meeting, nor our retrospective look over the route by which God had 
then led us ; and I bless his name that he has again enabled me to 
hear your words of cheering and comfort at a time when I, at least, 
am on the " brink of Jordan." (See Bunyan's "Pilgrim.") God in 
infinite rnercy grant us soon another meeting on the opposite shore. 
I have often passed under the rod of him whom I call my Father, — 
and certainly no son ever needed it oftener ; and yet I have enjoyed 
much of life, as I was enabled to discover the secret of this somewhat 
early. It has been in making the prosperity and happiness of others 
my own ; so that really 1 have had a great deal of prosperity. I am 
very prosperous still; and looking forward to a time when " peace 
on earth and good-will to men " shall everywhere prevail, I have no 
murmuring thoughts or envious feelings t(j fret my mind. " I '11 
praise my Maker with my breath." 

I am an unworthy nephew (jf Deacon John, and I loved him much ; 
and in view of the many choice friends I have had here, I am led the 
more earnestly to pray, " gather not my soul with the unrighteous." 
Your assurance of the earnest sympathy of the friends in my native 
land is very grateful to my feelings; and allow me to say a word of 
comfort to them. 

As I believe most firmly that God reigns, I cannot believe that 
anything I have done, suffered, or may yet suffer will be lost to the 
cause of God or of humanity. And before I began my work at Har- 
per's Ferry, I felt assured that in the worst event it would certainly 
pay. I often expressed that belief; and I can now see no possible 
cause to alter my mind. I am not as yet, in the main, at all disap- 
pointed. I have been a good deal disappointed as it regards myself 
in not keeping up to my own plans; but I now feel entirely recon- 
ciled to that, even, — for God's plan was infinitely better, no doubt, or 
I should have kept to my own. Had Samson kept to his determina- 
tion of not telling Delilah wherein his great strengtli lay, he would 
probably have never overturned the house. I did not tell Delilah, 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 591 

but I was induced to act very contrary to my better judgment ; and I 
have lost my two noble boys, and other friends, if not my two eyes. 

But " God's will, not mine, be done." I feel a comfortable hope 
that, like that erring servant of whom I have just been writing, even 
1 may (through infinite mercy in Christ Jesus) yet " die in faith." 
As to both the time and manner of my death, — I have but very little 
trouble on that score, and am able to be (as you exhort) " of good 
cheer." 

I send, through you, my best wishes to Mrs. W. ^ and her 

son George, and to all dear friends. IMay the God of the poor and 
oppressed be the God and Savior of you all ! 

Farewell, till we meet again. 

Your friend in truth, 

John Brown. 

To his Wife. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 16, 1859. 
My dear Wife, — I wi'ite you in answer to a most kind letter of 
November 13 from dear Mrs. Spring. I owe her ten thousand thanks 
for her kindness to you particularly, and more especially than for 
what she has done and is doing in a more direct way for me per- 
sonally. Although I feel grateful for every expression of kindness 
or sympathy towards me, yet nothing can so effectually minister to 
my comfort as acts of kindness done to relieve the wants or miti- 
gate the sufferings of my poor distressed family. May God Almighty 
and their own consciences be their eternal rewarders ! I am ex- 
ceedingly rejoiced to have you make the acquaintance and be 
surrounded by such choice friends, as I have long known by 
reputation some of those to be with whom you are staying. I 

1 The Rev. Leonard WooLsey Bacon, then of Litchfield, Conn., who first 
printed this letter, said in 1859 : " My aged fiiend, the Rev. H. L. Vaill, 
of this place, remembers John Brown as having been under his instruction 
in the year 1817, at Morris Academy. He was a godly youth, laboring to 
recover from his disadvantages of early education, in the hope of entering 
the ministry of the Gospel. Since then the teacher and pupil have met but 
once. But a short time since, Mr. Vaill wrote to Brown, in his prison, a 
letter of Christian friendship, to which he has received this heroic and 
sublime reply. I have copied it faithfully from the autograph that lies 
before me, without the change or omission of a word, except to omit the 
full name of the friends to whom he sends his message. The handwriting 
is clear and firm, but toward the end of the sheet seems to show that the 
sick old man's hand was growing weary. The very characters make an 
appeal to us for our sympathy and prayers. ' His salutation with his own 
hand. Remember his bonds.' " 



592 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [issg. 

am most glad to have you meet vAith one of a family (or I would 
rather say of two families) most beloved and never to be forgotten 

by me. I mean dear gentle . Many and many a time have 

she, her father, mother, brother, sisters, uncle, and aunt, like angels 
of mercy, ministered to the wants of myself and of my poor sons, 
both in sickness and health. Only last year I lay sick for quite a 
number of weeks with them, and was cared for by all as though I 
had been a most affectionate brother or father. Tell her that I 
ask G(.>d to bless and reward them all forever. "I was a stranger, 

and they took me in." It may possibly be that would like to 

copy this letter, and send it to her home. If so, by all means let 
her do so. I would write them if I had the power. 

Now let me say a word about the effoi-t to educate our daughters. 
I am no longer able to provide means to help towards that object, 
and it therefore becomes me not to dictate in the matter. I shall 
gratefully submit the direction of the whole thing to those whose gen- 
erosity may lead them to undertake in their behalf, while I give anew 
a little expression of my own choice respecting it. You, my wife, per- 
fectly well know that I have always expressed a decided preference 
for a very plain but perfectly practical education for both sons and 
daughters. I do not mean an education so very miserable as that 
you and I received in early life ; nor as some of our cliildren enjoyed. 
When I say j)lain but practical, I mean enough of the learning of the 
schools to enable them to transact the common business of life com- 
fortably and respectably, together with that thorough training to 
good business habits which best prepares both men and women to 
be useful though poor, and to meet the stern realities of life with 
a good grace. You well know that I always claimed that the 
music of the broom, wash-tub, needle, spindle, loom, axe, scythe, 
hoe, flail, etc., should first be learned at all events, and that of the 
piano, etc., afterwards. I put them in that order as most condu- 
cive to health of body and mind ; and for the obvious reason, that 
after a life of some experience and of much observation, I have 
found ten women as well as ten men who have made their mark 
in life right, whose early training was of that plain, practical kind, 
to one who had a more popular and fashionable early training. But 
enough of that. 

Now, in regard to your coming here. If you feel sure that you can 
endure the trials and the shock which will be unavoidable (if you 
come), I sliould be most glad to see you once more ; but when I 
think of your being insulted on the road, and perhaps while here, 
and of only seeing your wretchedness made complete, I shrink from 
it. Your composure and fortitude of mind may be quite equal to it 
aU ; but I am in dreadful doubt of it. If you do come, defer your 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 593 

journey till about the 27th or 28th of this month. The scenes which 
you will have to pass through on coming here will be anything but 
those you now pass, with tender, kiud-liearted friends, and kind faces 
to meet you everywhere. Do consider the matter well before you 
make the plunge. I think I had better say no more on this most pain- 
ful subject. My health improves a little ; my mind is very tranquil, I 
may say joyous, and I continue to receive every kind attention that I 
have any possible need of. I wish you to send copies of all my let- 
ters to all our poor children. What I write to one must answer for 
all, till I have more strength. I get numerous kind letters from 
friends in almost all directions, to encourage me to "be of good 
cheer," and I still have, as I trust, " the peace of God to rule in my 
heart." May God, for Christ's sake, ever make his face to shine on 
you all ! 

Your affectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

To Thomas B. Mtisgrave} 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 17, 1859. 
T. B. MusGRAVE, Esq. 

My dear young Friend, — I have just received your most kind 
and welcome letter of the 15th inst., but did not get any other from you. 
I am under many obligations to you and to your father for all the 
kindnesses you have shown me, especially since my disaster. May 
God and your own consciousness ever be your rewarders. Tell your 
father that I am quite cheerful ; that I do not feel myself in the least 
degraded by my imprisonment, my chains, or the near prospect of 
the gallows. Men cannot imprison, or chain, or hang the soul. I 
go joyfully in behalf of millions that " have no rights " that this 
great and glorious, this Christian Republic " is bound to respect." 
Strange change in morals, political as well as Christian, since 
1776! I look forward to otlier changes to take place in God's 
good time, fully believing that "the fashion of tliis world passeth 
away." I am unable now to tell you where my friend is, that you 
inquire after. Perhaps my wife, who I suppose is still with Mrs. 
Si)ring, may have some information of him. I think it quite un- 
certain, however. 

Farewell. May God abundantly bless you all ! 

Your friend, 

John Brown. 

1 The father of this gentleman was Mr. Musgi-ave, the English manufac- 
turer at Northampton, mentioned in Chapter III. 

38 



594 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 



To his Cousin, ReiK Mr. Humphrey. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 19, 1859. 

Rev. Luther Humphrey. 

My dear Friend, — Your kind letter of the 12th instcant is now 
before me. So far as my knowledge goes as to our mutual kindred, 
I suppose T am the first since the landing of Peter Brown from tlie 
"Mayflower" that has either been sentenced to imprisonment or to the 
gallows. But, my dear old friend, let not that fact alone grieve you. 
You cannot have forgotten how and where our grandfather fell in 
1776, and that he, too, might have perished on the scaffold had cir- 
cumstances been but a very little different. The fact that a man 
dies under the hand of an executioner (or otherwise) has but little to 
do with his true character, as I suppose. John Rogers perished at 
the stake, a great and good man, as I suppose ; but his doing so does 
not prove that any other man who has died in the same way was 
good or otherwise. 

Whether I have any reason to " be of good cheer" or not in view 
of my end, I can assure you that I feel so; and I am totally blinded 
if I do not really experience that strengthening and consolation you 
so faithfully implore in my behalf: the God of our fathers reward 
your fidelity ! I neither feel mortified, degraded, nor in the least 
ashamed of my imprisonment, my chains, or near prospect of death 
by hanging. I feel assured "that not one hair shall fall from my 
head without the will of my Heavenly Father." I also feel that I 
have long been endeavoring to h(dd exactly " such a fast as God has 
chosen." (See the passage in Isaiah which you have quoted.^) No 
part of my life has been more happily spent than that I have spent 
here ; and I humbly trust that no part has been spent to better pur- 
pose. I would not say this boastiugly, but thanks be unto God, who 
giveth us the victory through infinite grace. 

1 The reference here is to the familiar text in the fifty-eighth chapter 
of the prophet, who may be said to have foretold Brown as clearly as he 
predicted any event in Hebrew history : " Is not this the fast tliat I have 
chosen, — to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and 
to let the opi)ressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? Is it not to 
deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast 
out to thy house ? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him : and 
that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ? . . . Then shalt thou 
call, and the Lord shall answer ; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here 
I am. . . . Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations ; and 
thou shalt be called the Repairer of the breach, the Restorer of i)aths to 
dwell in." 



1859.1 



JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 595 



I should be sixty years old were I to live to May 9, 1860. I have 
enjoyed much of life as it is, and have been remarkably prosperous, 
liaving early learned to regard the welfare and prosperity of others as 
my own. I have never, since I can remember, required a great 
amount of sleep; so that I conclude that I have already enjoyed full 
an average number of working hours with those who reach their 
threescore years and ten. I have not yet been driven to the use of 
glasses, but can see to read and write quite comfortably. But more 
than that, I have generally enjoyed remarkably good health. I might 
go on to recount unnumbered and unmerited blessings, among which 
would be some very severe afflictions, and those the most needed 
blessings of all. And now, when I think how easily I might be left 
to spoil all I have done or suffered in the cause of freedom, I hardly 
dare M'ish another voyage, even if I had the opportunity. 

It is a long time since we met ; but we shall come together in our 
Father's house, I trust. Let us hold fc\st that Ave already have, re- 
membering we shall reap in due time if we faint not. Thanks be 
unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
And now, my old, warm-hearted friend, good- by. 
Your affectionate cousin, 



John Biy5WN. 



To his Wife. 



Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 21, 1859. 

My dear Wife, — Your most welcome letter of the 13th instant 
I got yesterday. I am very glad to learn from yourself that you feel 
so much resigned to your circumstances, so much confidence in a wise 
and good Providence, and such composure of mind in the midst of 
all your deep afflictions. This is just as it should be; and let me 
still say, " Be of good cheer," for we shall so(jn " come out of all our 
great tribulations ; " and very soon, if we trust in him, "God shall 
wipe away all tears from our eyes." Soon " we shall be satisfied 
when we are awake in His likeness." There is now here a source of 
much disquietude to me, —namely, the fires which are almost of 
daily and nightly occurrence in this immediate neighborhood. While 
I well know^that no one of them is the work of our friends, I know 
at the same time that by more or less of the inhabitants we shall be 
charged with them, — the same as with the ominous and threatening 
letters to Governor Wise. In tlie existing state of public feeling I 
can easily see a further objection to your coming here at present ; but 
I did not intend sayinc: another word to you on tliat subject. 

Wliy will you not say to me wliether you had any crops mature 
this secison °? If so, what ones ? Althougli I may nevermore inter- 



596 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

meddle with your worldly affairs, 1 have not yet lost all interest iu 
thein. A little history of your success or of your failures I should 
vci-y much prize ; and I would gratify you and other frieuds some 
way were it in my power. I am still quite cheerful, and by no means 
cast down. I " remember that the time is short." Tlie little trunk 
and all its contents, so far as I can judge, reached me safe. May 
God reward all the contributors ! I wrote you under cover to our 
excellent friend Mrs. Spring on the 16th instant. I presume you 
have it before now. When you return, it is most likely the lake will 
not be open ; so y(»u must get your ticket at Tnty for Moreau Station 
or Glens Falls (for Glens Falls, if you can get one), or get one for 
Vergennes in Vermont, and take your chance of crossing over on the 
ice to Westport. If you go soon, tlie route by Glens Falls to Eliza- 
bethtown will probably be the best. 

I have just learned that our poor Watson lingered until Wednesday 
about noon of the 19th of October. Oliver died near my side in a 
few moments after he was shot. Dauphin died the next morning 
after Oliver and William were killed, — namely, Monday. He died 
almost instantly; was by my side. William was shot by several 
persons. Anderson was killtnl with Dauphin. 

Kef'p this letter to refer to. God Almighty bless and keep you 

all! 

Your aflfectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

Dear j\Irs. Spring, — I send this to your care, because I am at 
a loss where it will reach my wife. 

Your friend iu truth, 

John Brown. 

To his younger Children. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 22, 1859. 

Dear Children, all, — I address this letter to you, supi>osing 
that your mother is not yet with you. She has not yet come Iiere, 
as I have requested her not to do at present, if at all. She may think 
it best fnr her not to come at all. She lias (or will), I presume, writ- 
ten you before this. Annie's letter to ns botli, of the Dth, has but just 
reached me. I am very glad to get it, and to learn that you are in 
any measure cheerful. This is the greatest eonifml I can hare, ex- 
cept that it would be t(^ know that y<'U aiT> all Christians. God in 
mercy grant yoii all n^ay be so ! That is what you all will certainly 
need. When and in what form death may come is but of smjijl mo- 
ment. I feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth and for 
suffering humanity on the scaffold as in any other way j and I do 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 597 

not say this from any disposition to "brave it out." No ; I would 
readily own iny wrong were I in the least convinced of it. I have 
now been confined over a month, with a good opportunity to look the 
whole thing as "fair in the face" as I am capable of doing; and I 
now feel it most grateful that 1 am counted in the least possible de- 
gree wortiiy to sutler for the truth. I want you all to " be of good 
cheer." This life is intended as a season of training, chastisement, 
temptation, affliction, and trial; and the "righteous shall come out 
of" it all. Oh, my dear cliildreu, let me agaiu entreat you all to 
"forsake the foolish, and live." What can you possibly lose by such 
a course f " Godliuess with contentment is great gain, having the 
promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to couie." " Trust 
in the Lord and do good, so shall thou dwell in the land ; and verily 
thou shalt be fed." I have enjoyed life nmch ; why should I com- 
plain on leaving it ? I want some of you to write me a little more 
particularly about all that concerns your welfare. I intend to write 
you as often as I can. " To God and the word of his grace I com- 
mend you all." Your affectionate father, 

John Brown. 
•I 

To his older Children. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 22, 1859. 
Dear Children, — Your most welcome letters of the 16th inst. 
I have just received, and I bless God that he has enabled you to bear 
the heavy tidings of our disaster with so much seeming resignati(m 
and composure of mind. That is exactly the thing I have wislied 
you all to do for me, — to be cheerful and perfectly resigned to the holy 
will of a wise and good God. I bless his most holy name that I am, 
I trust, in some good measure able to do the same. I am even "joy- 
ful in all my tribulations " ever since my confinement, and I humbly 
trust that " I know in whom I have trusted." A calm peace, per- 
haps like that which your own dear mother felt in view of her last 
change, seems to fill my mind by day and by night. Of this neither 
the powers of " earth or hell " can deprive me. Do not, my dear 
children, any of you grieve for a single moment on my account. As 
I trust my life has not been thrown away, so I also humbly trust 
tliat my death will not be in vain. God can make it to be a thousand 
times more valuable to his own cause than all the miserable service 
(at best) that I have rendered it during my life. When I was first 
taken, I was too feeble to write much ; so I wrote what I could to 
North Elba, requesting Ruth and Anne to send you copies of all my 
letters to them. I hope they have done so, and that you, Ellen, ^ will 

^ Mrs. Jason Brown. 



598 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

do the same with what I may send to you, a.s it is still quite a labor 
for me to write all that I need to. I want your brothers to know 
what I write, if you know where to reach them. I wrote Jeremiah 
a few days since to supply a trifling assistance, fifteen dollars, to such 
of you as might be most destitute. I got his letter, but do not know 
as he o-ot mine. I hope to get another letter from him soon. I also 
asked him to show you my letter. I know of nothing you can any of 
you now do for me, unless it is to comfort your own hearts, and cheer 
and encourage each other to trust in God and Jesus Christ whom he 
hath sent. If you will keep his sayings, you shall certainly "know of 
his doctrine, whether it be of God or no." Nothing can be more grate- 
ful to me than your earnest sympathy, except it be to know that you 
are fully persuaded to be Christians." And now, dear children, fare- 
well for this time. I hope to be able to write you again. The God 
of my fathers take you for his children. 

Your aflPectiouate father, 

John Brown. 

To the Rev. McFarland. 

Jail, Charlestown, Wednesday, Nov. 2.3, 1859. 

The Rev. McFarland. 

Dear Friend, — Although you write to me as a stranger, the 
spirit you show towards me and the cause for which I am in bonds 
makes me feel towards you as a dear friend. I would be glad to have 
you or any of my liberty-loving ministerial friends here, to talk and 
pray with me. I am not a strangt^r to the way of salvation by Christ. 
From my youth I have studied much on that subject, and at one time 
hoped to be a minister myself; but God had another work for me to 
do. To me it is ijivcn, in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on 
him. but also to suffer for his sake. But while I trust that I have 
some experimental and saving knowledge of religion, it would be a 
great pleasure to me to have some one better qualified than myself to 
lead my mind in prayer and meditation, now that my time is so near 
a close. You may wonder, are there no ministers <.f the gospel here ? 
I answer, no. There are no ministers of Clirist here. These minis- 
ters who profess to be Christian, and hold slaves or advocate slavery, 
I cannot abide them. My knees will not bend in prayer with them, 
while their hands are stained with the blood of souls. The subject 
you mention as having been preaching on the day before you wrote 
to me is (.ne which I have often thought of since my imprisonment. 
I thinlv I feel as happy as Paul did when he lay in prison. He knew 
if they killed him, it would greatly advance the cause of Christ ; that 
was the reason he rejoiced so. On tliat same ground " I do rejoice. 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 599 

yea, and will rejoice." Let them liatig me ; I forgive them, and may 
God forgive them, for they know not wliat they do. I have no regret 
for the transaction for which I am condemned. I went against the 
laws of men, it is true, but " whether it be right to obey God or 
men, judge ye." Christ told me to remember them that were in 
bonds as bound with them, to do towards them as I would wish 
tlieiii to do towards me in similar circumstances. My conscience 
bade me do that. I tried to do it, but failed. Therefore I have no 
regret on that score. I have no sorrow either as to the result, only 
for my poor wife and children. They have suffered much, and it is 
hard to leave them uncared for. But God will be a husband to the 
widow and a father to the fatlierless. 

I have frequently been in Wooster, and if any of my old friends 
from about Akron are tliere, you can show them this letter. I liave 
but a few more days, and I feel anxious to be away " where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Farewell. 
Your friend, and the friend of all friends of liberty, 

John Brown. 

To Mrs. MarcxiS Spring. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 24, 1859. 

My dear Mrs. Spring, — Your ever welcome letter of the IDth 
inst., together with the one now enclosed, were received by me last 
night too late for any reply. I am always grateful for anything you 
either do or write. I would most gladly express Tuy gratitude to you 
and yours by something more than words ; but it has come to that, I 
now have but little else to deal in, and sometimes they are not so 
kind as they should be. You have laid me and my family under 
many and great obligations. I hope they may not soon be forgotten. 
The same is also true of a vast many others, that I shall never be 
able even to thank. I feel disposed to leave the education of my dear 
childnm to their mother, and to those dear friends who bear the bur- 
den of it; only expressing my earnest hope that they may all be- 
come strong, intelligent, expert, industrious. Christian housekeepers. 
I would wish that, together with other studies, they Tnay thorouglily 
study Dr. Franklin's " Poor Richard." I want them to become 
matter-of-fact women. Perhaps I have said too much about this 
already ; I would not allude to this subject now but for tlie fact that 
you had most kindly expressed your generous feelings with regard 
to it. * 

I sent the letter to my wife to your care, because the address she 
sent me from Philadelphia was not sufficiently plain, and left me 
quite at a loss. I am still in the same predicament, and were I not 



600 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BKOWN, [1859. 

ashamed to trouble you further, would ask you either to send this to 
her or a copy of it, in order that she may see souietliing from me 
often. 

I have very many interesting visits fi'oin proslavery persr>ns ahnost 
daily, and I endeavor to improve them faithfully, plainly, and kindly. 
I do ni>t think that I ever enjoyed life better than since my confine- 
ment here. For this I am indebted to Infinite Grace, and the kind 
letters of friends from different quarters. I wish I could only know 
that all my poor family were as much composed and as happy as I. 
I think that nothing but the Christian religion can ever make any 
one so much composed. 

" My willing soul would stay 
In such a frame as this." 

There are objections to my writing many things while here that I 
might be disposed to write were I under diii'ereut circumstances. I do 
not know that my wife yet understands that prison rules require that 
all I write or receive should first be examined by the sheriff or State's 
attorney, and that all company 1 see should be attended by the jailer 
or some of his assistants. Yet such is the case ; and did she know 
this, it might influence her mind somewhat abcnit the op}>ortunity she 
would have on ct)ming here. We cannot expect the jailer to devote 
very much time to us, as he has now a very hard task on his hands. I 
have just learned how to send letters to my wife near Philadelphia. 

I have a son at Akron, Ohio, that I greatly desire to have loca^ted 
in such a neighborhood as yours; and you will pardon me for giving 
you some account of him, making all needful allowance for the 
source the account comes from. His name is Jason; he is abf)ut 
thirty-six years old; has a vrife and one little boy. He is a very la- 
borious, ingenious, temperate, honest, and trutliful inan. He is very 
expert as a gardener, vine-dresser, and manasjer of fruit-trees, but 
does not piide himself on account of his skill in anything ; always 
has underrated himself; is bashful and retiring in his habits; is not 
(like his father) too much inclined to assume and dictate ; is too con- 
scientious in his dealings and too tender o^ people's feelings to get 
from them his just deserts, and is very poor. He suffered almost 
everything on the way to and while in Kansas but death, and re- 
turned to Ohio not a spoiled but next to a ruined man. He never 
quarrels, and yet I know that he is both morally and physically 
brave. He will not deny his principles to save his life, and he 
*' turned not back in the day of battle." At the battle of Osa- 
watomie he fought by my side. He is a most tender, K)ving, and 
steadfast friend, and on the right side of tilings in general, a practical 
Samaritan (if not Christiau); and could I k\iow that he was located 



1859] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 601 

with a population who were disposed to encourage hiin, without ex- 
pecting hiin to pay too dearly in the end for it, I should feci greatly 
relieved. His wife is a very neat, industrious, prudent woman, who 
has undergone a severe trial in " the school of afflicticjn." 

You make one request of me that I shall not be able to comply 
with. Am sorry that I cannot at least explain. Your own account 
of my plans is very well. The son I mentioned has now a small 
stock of choice vines and fruit-trees, and in them consists his worldly 
store mostly. I would give you some account of others, but I sup- 
pose my wife may have done so. 

Your friend, John Brown. 

To his Counsel. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 24, 1859. 
George H. Hoyt, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Your kind letter of the 22d instant is received. I 
exceedingly regret my inability to make you some other aclinowledg- 
ment for all your efforts in my behalf than that which consists merely 
in words ; but so it is. May God and a good conscience be your 
continual reward. I really do not see what you can do for me any 
further. I commend my poor family to the kind remembrance of all 
friends, but I well understand that they are not the only poor in our 
world. I ought to begin to leave off saying " our world." I have 
but very little idea of the charges made against Mr. Griswold, as I 
get to see but little of what is afloat. I am very sorry for any wrong 
that may be done him, but I have no means of contradicting any 
thing that may be said, not knowing what is said. I cannot see 
how" it should be any more dishonorable for him to receive some 
compensation for his expenses and service than for Mr. Cliilton, and 
I am not aware that any blame is attached to him on that score. I 
am getting more letters constantly than I well know how to answer. 
My kind friends appear to have very wrong ideas of my condition, as 
regards replying to all the kind communications I receive. 
Your friend in truth, 

John Brown. 

In contrast with the letter of the good Quaker woman of 
Khode Island, and as a key to the answer made by John 
Brown, I print next the expostulatory, not to say Phari- 
saical, letter of his aged cousin, the Rev. Dr. Heman Hum- 
phrey, of western Massachusetts, addressed to the martyr 
in his Virginia prison. 



602 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Br. Humphrei) to Captain Brown. 

PiTT.sFiELD, Mass., Nov. 20, 1859. 
Mr. John Brown. 

My poor wounded and doomed Kinsman, — I should have 
written you before now if I had known what to say. That we all 
deeply feel for you in your present extraordinary circumstances you 
will not doubt. Most gladly would we Hy to your relief, if the sen- 
tence under which you lie had not put you entirely beyond the reach 
of hope. All we can do is to pray for you. This we can do ; and I 
am sure that prayer is offered without ceasing for you, that you may 
be prepared for that death from which I am persuaded nothing short 
of a miracle would save you. Oh, that we had known the amazing 
infatuation which was urging you on to certain destruction before it 
was too late ! We should have felt bound to have laid hold upon 
and retained you by violence, if nothing short would have availed. 
You will not allow us to interpose the plea of insanity in your be- 
half; you insist that you were never more sane in your life, — and 
indeed, there was so much "method in your madness," that such a 
plea would be of no avail. I do not intend to use the word madness 
reproachfully. I am bound to believe that you were as conscientious 
as Saul of Tarsus was in going to Damascus; and I am sure it was 
in an infinitely better cause. But what you intended was an impossi- 
bility; and all your friends are amazed that you did not see it. They 
can never believe that if you had been John Brown of better days, — 
if you had been in your right mind, — you would ever have plunged 
headlong, as yoii did, into the lion's den, where you were certain to 
be devoured. Oh, that you would have been held back ! But, alas! 
these are unavailing regrets ; it is too late ; it is done. The sentence 
is passed. 

You have come almost to the foot of the scaffold, and I presume 
you have no hope of escape. All that remains is to prcjiare for the 
closing scene of the awful tragedy. Are you prepared? You have 
long been a professor of religicni. I take it for granted that you will 
now anxiously examine yourself whether you are in the faith ; whether 
you are a true child of God, and prepared to die and go to the judg- 
ment. I do not believe you had murder in your heart. Your object, 
as you say, was to liberate the slaves. You wanted to do it without 
killing anybody. It is astonishing you did not consider that it could 
not be done without wading in blood. The time has not come. It 
is not the right way, and never will be. It is right to pray, " 
Lord, how long?" but not to run bc^fore and take the avenging 
sword into our own hands. You have nothing more to do in this 
world. You have done with the Border Ruffians, who hunted for 



1859.1 > JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 



603 



your precious life. It becomes you prayerfully to inquire how far 
you will be answerable at the bar of God for the blood which was 
shed at Harper's Ferry, and for the fate of those who are to die with 
you I iu.lge you not ; but there is One that judgeth, with whom is 
mercy and plentiful forgiveness to all who truly repent and savingly 
believe on him whose blood cleanseth from all sin. There is a great 
deal more danger that we shall think too little of our sins than too 
much The time is now so short that it becomes you to spend it 
mostly in prayer and meditation over your Bible. Oh, how precious 
is every hour ! I am sure you will welcome any pious friend who 
may visit you in prison; and I hcpe there is some godly minister 
who may come to you with his warmest sympathies and prayers. 
May God sustain you, my dying friend ! Vain is the help of man. 

Christ can stand by you and carry you through. Other help there 
i. n..ne. Oh, that there was a possibility that your hfe might be 
spared ' But, no ! there is nothing to hang a hope on. Farewell, 
m^y wounded and condemned friend. We shall not meet again in 
thi. world. Should I outlive you, it will not be long. I have passed 
my fourscore years. We trust that many of our kindred have gone 
to heaven. Oh, may we be prepared to meet, and to meet them 
there, washed in the Redeemer's blood ! 

From your aflectionate and deeply affected kinsman, 

H. Humphrey. 

Captain Brown to Rev.. Dr. Humphrey. 

Charlestown, Jeffekson County, Va., Nov. 25, 1859. 

Rev. Heman Humphrey, D.D. r ^ -, • j 

My dear and honored Kinsman, - Your very sorrowful, kind, 
and faithful letter of the 20th instant is now before me. T ^^<';Pt it 
with all kindness. I have honestly endeavored to profit by tlie faith- 
ful advice it contains. Indeed, such advice could never come amiss 
You will allow me to say that I deeply sympathize M-ith you and al 
my sorrowing friends in their grief and terrible mortihcation. 1 teel 
ten times more afflicted on their account than on account of my own 
circumstances. But I must say that I am neither conscious of be- 
ing '' infatuated " nor " mad." You will doubtless agree with me m 
this —that neither imprisonment, irons, nor the gallows falling to 
one's lot are of themselves evidence of either guilt, "infatuation, 

or madness." 

I discover that you labor under a mistaken impression as to some 
important facts, which my peculiar circumstances will in all proba- 
bility prevent the possibility of my removing; and I do ii<'t propo^ 
to take up any argument ti> prove that any motion or act ot my lite 



604 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

is right. But I will here stcate that I know it to be wholly my own 
fault as a leader that caused our disaster. Of this you have no jjroper 
means of judging, ut»t being on the ground, or a practical soldier. I 
will only add, that it was in yielding to my feelings of humanity 
(if 1 ever exercised such a feeling), in leaving my proper jdace and 
mingling with my prisoners to quiet their fears, that occasioned our 
being caught. I firmly believe that God reigns, and that he over- 
rules all things in the best possible manner; and in that view of the 
subject I try to be in some degree reconciled to my own weaknesses 
and follies even. 

If you were here on the spot, and could be with me by day and by 
night, and know the facts and how my time is spent here, I think 
you would find much to reconcile your own mind to the ignominious 
death I am about to sxitfer, and to mitigate your sorrow. I am, to 
say the least, quite cheerful. ** He shall begin to deliver Israel out 
of the hand of the Philistines." This was said of a poor erring ser- 
vant many years ago ; and for many years I have felt a strong im- 
pression that God had given me powers and faculties, unwortliy as 
I was, that he intended to use for a similar purpose. Tliis most 
unmerited honor He has seen fit to bestow; and whether, like the 
same pottr frail man to whom I allude, my death may not be of vastly 
more value than my life is, I think quite beyond all human foresight. 
I really have strong hopes that notwithstanding all my many sius, I 
too may yet die "in faith." 

If you do not believe I had a murderous intention (while I know I 
had not), VA'hy grieve so terribly on my account? The scaflold has 
but few terrt)rs for me. God has often covered my head in the day 
of battle, and granted me many times deliverances that were almost 
so miraculous that I can scarce realize their truth ; and now, when 
it seems quite certain that he intends to use me in a diti'erent way, 
shall I not most clieerfully go? I may be deceived, but I humbly 
trust that he will not forsake me "till I have showed liis favor to 
this generation and his strength to every one that is to come." Your 
letter is most faithfully and kindly written, and I mean to profit by 
it. I am certainly quite grateful for it. I feel that a great responsi- 
bility rests upon me as regards the lives of those who have fallen and 
may yet fall. I must in that view cast myself on the care of Him 
" whose mercy eudnreth forever." If the cause in which I engaged 
in any possible degree aj)proximated to bo "infinitely better" than 
the one wliich Saul of Tarsus undertook, I have no reason to be 
ashamed of it ; and indeed I cannot now, after more than a mouth 
for reflection, find in my licart (before God in whose presence I 
expect to stand within anotlier week) any cause for shame. 



1839.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 605 

I got a long and most kind letter from your pure-heartea brother 
Luther, to which T replied at some length. The statement that 
seems to be going around in tlie newspapers that I told Governor 
Wise that I came on here to seek revenge for the wn)ngs of either 
myself or my family, is utterly false. I never intended to convey 
such an idea, and I I)less God that I am able even now to say that I 
have never yet harbored such a feeling. See testimony of witnesses 
who were with me while I had one son lying dead by my side, and 
another mortally wounded and dying on my other side. I do not 
believe that Governor Wise so understood, and I think he ought to 
correct that impression. The impression that we intended a general 
insurrection is equally untrue. 

Now, my much behjved and much resjiected kinsman, farewell. 
May the God of our fathers save and abundantly bless you and yours ! 

John Brown. 

The following is an extract from the last letter received 
by Mrs. Brown before she started to go to Charlestown, 
bearing date Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 26, 
1859, in which, after referring to his wife's being under 
Mrs. Mott's roof, he proceeds to say : — 

... I remember tlie faithful old lady well, but presume she has 
no recollection of me. I once set myself to oppose a mob at Boston, 
where she was. After I interfered, the police immediately took up 
the matter, and soon put a stop to mob proceedings. The meeting 
was, I think, in Marlboro Street Church, or Hotel, perhaps. I am 
glad to have you make the acquaintance of such old pioneers in the 
cause. I have just received from Mr. John Jay, of New York, a 
draft for fifty dollars for the benefit of my family, and will enclose it 
made payable to your order. I have also fifteen dollars to send to 
our crippled and destitute unmarried son. When I can 1 intend 
to send you, by express, two or three little articles to carry home. 
Should you happen to meet with Mr. Jay, say to him that you fully 
appreciate his great kindness both to me and my family. God bless 
all such friends ! It is out of my power to reply to all the kind and 
encouraging letters I get r I wish I could do so. I have been so 
mucli relieved from my lameness for the last three or four days as to 
be able to sit up to read and write pretty much all day, as well as 
part of the night ; and 1 do assure you and all other friends that I 
am quite busy, and none the less happy on that account. The time 
passes quite pleasantly, and the near approach of my great change is 
not the occasion of any particular dread. < 



606 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

I trust that God, who has sustained me so long, will not forsake 
me when 1 most feel my need of Fatherly aid and support. Should 
he hide his face, my spirit w\\\ droop and die ; hut not titherwise, he 
assured. My only anxiety is to be properly assured of my fitness for 
the company of those who are " washed from all filthiness," and for 
the presence of Him who is infinitely pure. I certainly think I do 
have some " hunger and thirst after righteousness." If it be only 
genuine, I make no doubt I " shall be filled." Please let all our 
friends read my letters when you can ; and ask them to accept of it 
as in part for them. I am inclined to think you will not be likely to 
succeed well about getting away the bodies of your family ; but 
should that be so, do not let that grieve you. It can make but little 
difference what is done with them. 

You can well remember the changes you have passed through. 
Life is made up of a series of changes, and let us try to meet them 
in the best manner possible. You will not wish to make yourself 
and children any more burdensome to friends than you are really 
cotnpelled to do. I would not. 

I will close this by saying that if you now feel that you are equal 
to the undertaking, do exactly as you feel disposed to do about com- 
ing to see me before I suffer. I am entirely willing. 
Your affectionate husband, 

John Brown. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 27, 1859. 

Thaddel's Hyatt, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — Your very acceptable letter of the 24th instant 
has just been handed to me. I am certainly most obliged to you for 
it, and for all your efforts in behalf of my family and myself. I can 
form no idea of the objections to your mode of operating in their be- 
half, to which my friend Dr. Webb refers ; and I suppose it is now 
too late for any explanations from him that would enlighten me. It 
(your effort) at any rate takes from my mind the greatest burden I 
have felt since my imprisonment, — to feel assured that in some way 
my shattered and broken-hearted wife and children would be so far 
relieved as to save them from great physical suffering. Others may 
have devised a better way of doing it. I had no advice in regard to 
it, and felt very grateful to know, while I was yet living, of almost 
any active measure being taken. I hope no offence is taken at your- 
self or me in the matter. I am beginning to familiarize my mind 
with new and very different scenes. Am very cheerful. Farewell, 
my friend. 
A John 1'>k(>\vn. 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 607 

To Miss Sterns, of Springfield. 

Charlestowx, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 27, 1859. 
My dear Miss Sterns, — Your most kind and cheering letter of 
the 18th instant is received. Although I have not been at all low- 
spirited or cast down in feeling since being imprisoned and under 
sentence (which I am fully aware is soon to be carried out), it is ex- 
ceedingly gratifying to learn from friends that there are not wanting 
in this generation some to sympathize with me and appreciate my 
motive, even now that I am whipped. Success is in general the 
standard of all merit. I have passed my time here quite cheerfully ; 
still trusting that neither my life nor my death will prove a total loss. 
As regards both, however, I am liable to mistake. It affords mo 
some satisftiction to feel conscious of having at least tried to better 
the condition of those who are always on the under-hill side, and am 
in hopes of being able to meet the consequences without a murmur. 
I am endeavoring to get ready for auotlier field of action, wliere no 
defeat befalls the truly brave. That " God reigns," and most wisely, 
and controls all events, might, it would seem, reccmcile those who 
believe it to much that appeai-s to be very disastrous. I am one who 
has tried to believe that, and still keep trying. Those who die 
for the truth may prove to be courageous at last; so I continue 
" hoping on," till I shall find that the truth must finally prevail. 
I do not feel in the least degree despondent or degraded by my cir- 
cumstances ; and I entreat my friends not to grieve on my account. 
You will please excuse a very poor and short letter, as I get more 
than I can possibly answer. I send my best wishes to your kind 
mother, and to all the family, and to all the true friends of humanity. 
And now, dear friends, God be with you all, and ever guide and 
bless you ! Your friend, 

John Brown. 

To his sisters Mary and Martha. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., 
Nov. 27, 1859 (Sabbath). 

My dearly beloved sisters Mary A. and Martha, — I am 
obliged to occupy a part of what is probably my last Sabbath on 
earth in answering the very kind and comforting letters of sister 
Hand and son of the 23d inst., or I must fail to do so at all. I do 
not think it any violation of the day that God made for man. 
Nothing could be more grateful to my feelings than to learn that you 
do not feel dreadfully mortified, and even disgraced, on account of 
your relation to one who is to die on the scaftold. . I have really. 



608 Lli^E AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859 

suffered more, by tenfold, since my confinement here, on account of 
what I feared would be the terrible feelings of my kindred on my 
account, than from all other causes. I am most glad to learn from 
you that my fears on your own account were ill founded. I was 
afraid that a little seeming present prosperity miglit have carried you 
away from realities, so that " the honor that cometh from men " 
might lead you in some measure to undervalue that which "cometh 
from God." I bless God, who has most abundantly supported and 
comforted me all along, to find you are not ensnared. Dr. Heman 
Humphrey has just sent me a most doleful lamentation over my 
''infatuation and madness" (very kindly expressed), in which, I 
cannot doubt, he has given expression to the extreme grief of others 
of our kindred. I have endeavored to answer him kindly also, and 
at the same tiaie to deal faithfully with my old friend. I think I 
will send you liis letter ; and if you deem it worth the trouble, you 
can probably get my reply, or a copy of it. Suffice it for me to say, 
"None of these things move me." Luther Humphrey wrote me a 
very comforting letter. 

There are things, dear sisters, that God hides even from the wise 
and prudent. 1 feel astonished tliat one so exceedingly vile and un- 
wortliy as I am should even be suflVred to have a place anyhow or 
anywhere among the very least of all who, when they come to die 
(as all must), were permitted to pay the debt of nature in defence of 
the right and of God's eternal and immutable truth. Oh, my dear 
friends, can you believe it possible that the scaffold has no terrors 
for your own poor old unworthy brother f I thank God, through 
Jesus Christ my Lord, it is even so. I am now shedding tears, but 
they are no longer tears of grief or sorrow ; I trust I have nearly 
done with those. I am weeping for joy and gratitude that I can in 
no other way express. I get many very kind and comforting letters 
that I cannot possibly reply to ; wish I had time and strength to 
answer all. I am obliged to ask those to whom I do write to let 
friends read what I send as much as they well can. Do write my 
deeply afflicted and affectionate wife. It will greatly comfort her to 
have you write her freely. Slie has borne up manfully under accumu- 
lated griefs. She will be most glad to know that she has not been 
entirely forgotten by my kiitdred. Say to all my friends that I 
am waiting cheerfully and patiently the days of my appointed time ; 
fully believing that for me now to die will be to me an infinite gain 
and of untold benefit to the cause we love. Wherefore, " be of good 
cheer," and "■ let not your hearts be troubled." " To him that over- 
cometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also over- 
came and am set down with my Father in his throne." I wish my 
friends could know but a little of the rare opportunities I now get for 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 609 

kind and faithful labor ia God's cause. I hope they have not been 
entirely lost. 

Now, dear friends, I have done. May the God of peace bring 
us all again from the dead ! 

Your aflfectionate brother, 

John Brov^^. 

Charlestowx, Jefferson County, Va., 
Monday, Nov, 28, 1859. 
Hon. D. R. Tilden. 

My dear Sir, — Your most kind and comforting letter of the 23d 
iust. is received. I have no language to express the feelings of grat- 
itude and obligation I am under for your kind interest in my behalf 
ever since my disaster. The grea^^ bulk of mankind estimate each 
other's actions and motives by the measure of success or otherwise 
that attends them through life. By that rule, I have been one of 
the worst and one ot the best of men. I do not claim to have been 
one of the latter, and I leave it to an impartial tribunal to decide 
whetlier the world has been the worse or the better for my living 
and dying in it. My present great anxiety is to get as near in readi- 
ness for a different field of action as I well can, since being in a 
godd measure relieved from the fear that my poor broken-hearted 
wife and children would come to immediate want. May God reward 
a thousandfold all the kind efforts made in their behalf! I have en- 
joyed remarkable cheerfulness and composure of mind ever since my 
confinement ; and it is a great comfort to feel assured that T am per- 
mitted to die for a cause, — not merely to pay the debt of nature, as 
all must. I feel myself to be most unwttrthy of so great distinction. 
The particular manner of dying assigned to me gives me but very 
little uneasiness. I wish I had the time and the ability to give you, 
my dear friend, some little idea of what is daily, and I might almost 
say hourly, passing within my prison walls ,: and could my friends 
but witness only a few of these scenes, just as they occur, I think 
they would feel very well reconciled to my being here, just what I 
am, and just as I am. My whole life before had not afforded me one 
half the opportunity to plead for the right. In this, also, I iind much 
to reconcile me to both my present condition and my immediate 
prospect. I may be very insane ; and I am so, if insane at all. But 
if that be so, insanity is like a very pleasant dream to me. I am not 
in the least degree conscious of my ravings, of my fears, or of any 
terrible visions whatever ; but fancy myself entirely composed, and 
that my sleep, in particular, is as sweet as that of a healthy, joyous 
little infant. I pray God that he will grant me a continuance ot 
the same calm but delightful dream, until I come to know of those 

39 



GIG LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

realities which eyes have not seen and which ears have not heard. 
I have scarce realized that I am in prison or in irons at all. I cer- 
tainly tliink I was never more cheerful in my life. 

I intend to take the liberty of sending by express to your care 
some trifling articles for those of my family who may be in Ohio, 
which you can hand to my brother Jeremiah when you may see him, 
together with fifteen dollars I have asked him to advance to them. 
Please excuse me so often troubling you with my letters or any of 
my matters. Please also remember me most kindly to Mr. Griswold, 
and to all others who love their neighbors. I write Jeremiah to 
your care. Your friend in truth, 

John Brown. 

To Various Friends. 

Charlkstown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 29, 18.59. 

My dear Covenanter [Rev. A. M. MiUigan], — Notwithstand- 
ing I now get daily more than three times the number of kind letters 
I can possibly answer, I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of say- 
ing a few words to a stranger, whose feelings and whose judgment 
so nearly coincide with my own. No letter, of a great number I 
have got to. cheer, encourage, and advise me, has given more heart- 
warming satisfaction ur better counsel than your own. I hope to 
profit by it ; and I am greatly obliged for this your visit to my 
prison. It really seemed to impart new strength to my soul, notwith- 
standing I was very cheerful before. I trust, dear brother, that God, 
in infinite grace and mercy for Christ's sake, will neither leave me 
nor forsake me till I " have showed His power to this generation, 
and his strength to every one tliat is to come." I would most gladly 
commune further as we journey on ; but I am so near the close of 
mine that I must Iireak off, however reluctant. 

Farewell, my faithful brother in Christ Jesus ! Farewell ! 

Your friend, John Brown. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 29, 1859. 
Mrs. Georoe L. Stearns, Boston, Mass. 

My dear Friend, — No letter I have received since my imprison- 
ment here has given me more satisfaction or comfort than yours 
of the 8th instant. I am quite cheerful, and was never more happy. 
Have only time to write a word. May God forever reward you and 
all yours ! My love to all who love their neighbors. I have asked 
to be spared from having any weak or hypocritical prayers made 
over me when I am publicly murdered, and that my only religious 



1S59.] JOHN BEOWN IN PRISON. 611 

attendants be poor little dirty, ragged, bareheaded, and barefooted 
slave boys and girls, led by some old gray-headed slave mother. 
Farevi^eil ! Farewell ! 

Your friend, JOHN Brown. 

This is the copy of a letter that Mrs. Brown brought from 
Virginia, and sent to Mrs. Stearns, in a Bible. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County Prison, Va., Nov. 29, 1859. 
J. Q. Anderson, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — Your letter of the 23d instant is received ; but 
notwithstanding it would afford me the utmost pleasure to answer 
it at length, it is not in my power to write you but a few words. 
Jeremiah G. Anderson was( tighting bravely by my side at Harper's 
Ferry up to the moment when I fell wounded, and I took no further 
notice of what passed for a little time.^ I have since been told that 

1 At this point may be introduced the letter of an eye-witness of what 
happened during this "little time," when the hero had swooned from loss 
of blood and ])ain, and was believed to be dead. Mr. Tayleure, a South 
Carolinian, wrote thus to John Brown, Jr., six years ago : — ' 

864 Broapway, New York, June 15, 1S79. 

Dear Sir, — Duty took me to Harper's Ferry at the time of the raid in lSo9 (I was 
then connected with the Baltimore Press), and by chance I was brought into close per- 
sonal contact with both your father and your brother Watson. After the assault I 
assisted your father to rise, as he stumbled forward out of the historic engine-house ; 
and was able to administer to your brother, just liefore he died, some physical comfort, 
which won me his thanks. Subsequent to the capture of the party, I accompanied 
Captain J. E. B. Stuart and the battalion he commanded to the Kennedy farm ; and 
there, by another strange chance, I came into possession of a number of papers belong- 
ing to your father. These I afterwards delivered to Governor Wise, upon his requisition ; 
but there yet remains in my possession an old manifold letter-writer which belonged to 
your father. In this are several letters, m his handwriting, entitled "Sambo's Mis- 
takes," written, apparently, for publication, and addressed " To the Editor of the 
' Ramshorn.' " They contain a satirical summing up, related in the first person, of the 
mistakes and weaknesses common to the colored people. This book, together with a 
eonmion carpet-bag, a red and white check blanket, a rifle, i>istol, and pike,— all of 
which I found at the Kennedy house, — I kept, and yet have, I think, as mementos of 
that tragic affair. Two or three years ago I read in one of the magazines Owen Brown's 
relation of his escape from the Ferry, and was minded to supplement it with my narra- 
tive of the capture and its incidents, but the many demands upon my time prevented 
my doing so. 

I am a South Carolinian, and at the time of the raid was very deeply imbued with 
the political prejudices of my State ; but the serenity, calm courage, and devotion to 
duty which your father and his followers then manifested impressed me very pro- 
foundly. It is impossible not to feel respect for men who offer up their lives in support 
of their convictions ; and the earnestness of my respect I put upon record in a Balti- 
more paper the day succeeding the event. I gave your brother a cup of water to quench 
his thirst (this was at about 7.30 on the morning of the capture), and improvised a 
couch for him out of a bench, with a pair of overalls for a pillow. I remember how he 
looked, — singularly handsome, even through the grime of his all-day struggles, and the 



612 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

he was mortally wounded at the same momout, and died in a short 
time afterwards. I believe this information is correct ; but I have 
no means of knowing from any acquaintances, not being allowed in- 
tercourse with otlier prisoners, except one. The same is true as to 
the death of one of my own sons. I have no doubt but both are 
dead. Your friend, John Brown. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 29, 1859. 
S. E. Sewall, Esq., Boston. 

My DEAR Sir, — Your most kind letter of the 24th instant is re- 
ceived. It does indee-d give me " pleasure " and the greatest encour- 
agement to know of any efforts that have been made in behalf of my 
poor and deeply afflicted fiimily. It takes from my mind tlie greatest 
cause of sadness I liave experienced during my imprisonment here. 
I feel quite cheerful, and ready to die. 1 can only say, for want of 
time, May the God of the oppressed and the poor in gi-eat mercy 
remember all those to whom we are so deeply indebted ! 

Farewell ! Your friend, John Brown. 

Charlestown, Va., Nov. 30, |859. 
Dr. Thos. H. Webb, Boston .^ 

My dear Sir, — I would most gladly comply with your request 
most kindly nuule in your letter of the 26th inst., but it came too 
late. It is out of my power. Farewell : God bless yon ! 

Your friend, John Brown. 

intense suffering which he must have endured. He was very calm, and of a tone and 
look very gentle. The look wltli wliich he searched my very heart I can never forget. 
One sentence of our conversation will give you the key-note to the whole. I asked him, 
" What brought you here ? " He replied, very patiently, " Duty, sir. " After a jxiuse, I 
again asked : " Is it then your idea of duty to shoot men down upon their own hearth- 
stones for defending their rights? " He answered : " I an-, dying ; I cannot discuss the 
question ; I did my duty, as I saw it." This conversation occurred in the comiiartment 
of the engine-house adjoining that in which the defence had been made, and was lis- 
tened to by young Coppoo with perfect equanimity, and by Shields Green with uncon- 
trollable terror. 

I met at Pittsburg, some years ago, Mr. Richard Rcalf (if that is the name ; he was 
connected with the " Commercial " of that city) ; and on relating my experience, he not 
only expressed much interest in it, but said he thought the surviving members of John 
Brown's family would be gratified to hear what I had to tell. 'T is in reniembraT\ce of 
Colonel Realf that I obey the impul.-<e to write you now. I do so with deep earnestness 
and with resjiect. Tlie war, in which I took part on the Southern side, eradicated 
many errors of political opinion, and gave growth to many established truths not then 
recognized. I have, for my own part, no regrets for my humble share in the revolt ; but 
I have now to say, that I firmly believe the war was ordained of God for the extermina- 
tion of slavery ; and that your father was an elected instrument for the commencement 
of that good work. I am, sir, with resjiect. 

Yours truly, C. V'\ T.^vr.EURE. 

1 This note refers to the publication of a photograpli of Brown, for the 
benefit of his family, — tlie same mentioned in the letter to T. Hyatt. 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 613 



John Brown^s Last Letter to his Family. 

Char^estowx Prison, Jefferson County, Va., 
Nov. 30, 1859. 

My dearly beloved Wife, Sons, and Daughters, every 
ONE, —As I now begin probably what is the last letter I shall ever 
write to any of you, I conclude to write to all at the same time. I 
will mention some little matters particularly applicable to little 
property concerns in another place. 

I recently received a letter from my wife, from near Philadelphia, 
dated November 22, by which it would seem that she was about 
giving up the idea of seeing me again. I had written her to come 
on if she felt equal to the undertaking, but I do not know that she 
will get my letter in time. It was on her own account, chiefly, that 
I asked her to stay back. At first I had a most strong desire to see 
her again, but there appeared to be very serious objections ; and 
should we never meet in this life, I trust that she will in the end be 
satisfied it was for the best at least, if not most for her comfort. 

I am waiting the hour of my public murder with great composure 
of mind and cheerfulness; feeling the strong assurance that in no 
other possible way could I be used to so much advantage to tlie 
cause of God and of humanity, and that nothing that either I or all 
my family have sacrificed or sufifered will be lost. The reflection 
that a wise and merciful as well as just and holy Grod rules not only 
the affairs of this world but of all worlds, is a rock to set our feet 
upon under all circumstances, — even those more severely trying ones 
in which our own feelings and wrongs have placed us. I have now 
no doubt but that our seeming disaster will ultimately result in the 
most glori(tus success. So, my dear shattered and broken family, be 
of good cheer, and believe and trust in God with all your heart 
and with all your soul ; for He doeth all things well. Do not feel 
ashamed on my account, nor for one moment despair of the cause or 
grow weary of well-doing. I bless God I never felt stronger confi- 
dence in the certain and near approach of a bright morning and glo- 
rious day than I have felt, and do now feel, since my confinement 
here. I am endeavoring to return, like a poor prodigal as I am, to 
my Father, against whom I have always sinned, in the hope that 
he may kindly and forgivingly meet me, though a very great way 
oflr. 

Oh, my dear wife and children, would to God you could know 
how I have been travailing in birth for you all, that no one of you 
may fail of the grace of God through Jesus Christ; that no one of 
you may be blind to the truth and glorious light of his Word, in 



614 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [18.-)9. 

which life and immortality are brought to light. I beseech you, 
every one, to make the Bible your daily and nightly study, with a 
child-like, honest, candid, teachable spirit of love and respect for 
your husband and father. And I beseech the God of my fathers to 
open all your eyes to the discovery of the truth. You cannot im- 
agine how much you may soon need the consolations of the Christian 
religion. Circumstances like my own for more than a month past 
have convinced me, beyond all doubt, of my own great need of some 
theories treasured up, when our prejudices are excited, our vanity 
worked up to the highest pitch. Oh, do not trust your eternal all 
upon the boisterous ocean, without even a helm or compass to aid 
you in steering ! I do not ask of you to throw away your reason ; 
I only ask you to make a candid, sober use of your reason. 

My dear young children, will you listen to this last poor admoni- 
tion of (uie who can only love you? Oh, be determined at once to 
give your whole heart to God, and let nothing shake or alter that 
resolution. You need have no fears of regretting it. Do not be 
vain and thoughtless, but sober-minded ; and let me entreat you all 
to love the whole remnant of our once great family. Try and build 
up again your broken walls, and to make the utmost of every stone 
that is left. Nothing can so tend to make life a blessing as the con- 
sciousness that your life and example bless and leave others stronger. 
Still, it is ground of the utmost comfort to my mind to know that so 
many of you as have had the opportunity have given some proof of 
your fidelity to the great family of men. Be faithful unto death : 
from the exercise of habitual love to man it cannot be very hard to 
love his Maker. 

I must yet insert the reason for my firm belief in the divine in- 
spiration of the Bible, notwithstanding I am, perhaps, naturally 
sceptical, — certainly not credulous. I wish all to consider it most 
thoroughly when you read that blessed book, and see whether you 
cannot discover such evidence yourselves. It is the purity of heart, 
filling our minds as well as work and actions, which is everywhere 
insisted on-, that distinguishes it from all the other teachings, that 
commends it to my ccmscience. Whether my heart be willing and 
obedient or not, the inducement that it holds out is another reason of 
my conviction of its truth and genuineness ; but I do not here omit 
this my last argument on the Bible, that eternal life is what my soul 
is panting after this moment. I mention tliis as a reason for endea- 
voring to leave a valuable copy of tlie Bible, to be carefully preserved 
in remembrance of me, to so many of my posterity, instead of some 
other book at equal cost. 

I beseech you all to live in habitual contentment with moderate 
circumstances and gains of worldly store, and earnestly to teach this 



1859.] JOHN BEOWN IN PRISON. 615 

to your children and children's children after you, by example as 
well as precept. Be determined to know by experience, as soon as 
may be, whether Bible instruction is of divine origin or not. Be 
sure to owe no man anything, but to love one another. John 
Rogers wrote to his children : " Abhor that arrant whore of Rome." 
John Brown writes to liis children to abhor, with undying hatred 
also, that sum of all villanies, — slavery. Remember, " he that is 
slow to anger is better than the mighty," and "he that ruleth his 
spirit than he that taketh a city." Remember also that " they being 
wise shall shine, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the 
stars for ever and ever." 

And now, dearly beloved family, to God and the work of his grace 
I commend you -all. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

John Brown. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 30, 1859. 

Mrs. Mary Gale (or the writer of the writing). ^ 

Dear Friend, — I have only time to give you the names of those 
that I know were killed of my company at Harper's Ferry, or that 
are said to have been killed; namely, two Thompsons, two Browns, 
J. Anderson, J. H. Kagi, Stewart Taylor, A. Hazlett, W. H. Leman, 
and three colored men. Would most gladly give you further infor- 
mation had I the time and ability. 

Your friend, 

John Brown. 

Charlestown Prison, Jefferson County, Ya., 
Dec. 1, 1859. 
To Mr. James Foreman.^ 

My dear Friend, — I have only time to say I got your l^ind 
letter of the 26th of November this evening. Am very grateful for 
all tlie good feelings expi'essed by yourself and wife. May God 
abundantly bless and save you all ! I am very cheerful, in hopes of 
entering on a better state of existence in a few hours, througli in- 
finite grace in Christ Jesus my Lord. Remember " the poor that 
cry," and " them that are in bonds as bound with them." 
Your friend as ever, 

John Brown. 

1 Written to the sister of Charles Plumnier Tidd, one of those who 
escaped with Owen Brown. 

2 A former apprentice when Brown was a tanner in Pennsylvania. 



616 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. 11859. 

On the day before his death, when with his wife, the 
conversation turned upon matters of business, which Brown 
desired to have arranged after his death. He gave his wife 
all the letters and papers needed for this purpose, and read 
to her the will which had been drawn up for him by Mr. 
Hunter, carefully explaining every portion of it. 

JOHN brown's will. 

Chariestown, Jefferson County, Va., Dec. 1, 1859. 

I give to my son John Brown, Jr., my surveyor's compass and 
other surveyor's articles, if found ; also, my old granite monument, 
now at North Elba, N. Y., to receive upon its two sides a further in- 
scription, as I M'ill hereafter direct ; said stone monument, however, 
to remain at North Elba so long as any of my children and my wife 
may remain there as residents. 

I give to my son Jason Brown my silver watcli, with my name 
engraved on inner case. 

i give to my son Owen Brown my double-spring opera-glass, and 
my rifle-gun (if found), presented to me at Worcester, Mass. It is 
globe-sighted and new. I give, also, to the same son $50 in cash, 
to be paid him from the proceeds of my father's estate, in consider- 
ation of his terrible suffering in Kansas and his crippled condition 
from his childhood. 

I give to my son Salmon Brown $50 in cash, to be paid him from 
my father's estate, as an offset to the first two cases above named. 

I give to my daughter Ruth Thompson my large old Bible, con- 
taining the family record. 

I give to each of my sons, and to each of my other daughters, my 
son-in-law, Henry Thompson, and to each of my daughters-in-law, 
as good a copy of the Bible as can be purchased at some bookstore 
in New York or Boston, at a cost of $5 each in cash, to be paid out 
of the proceeds of my father's estate. 

I give to each of my grandchildren that may be living when my 
father's estate is settled, as good a copy of the Bible as can be pur- 
chased (as above) at a cost of $3 each. 

All the Bibles to be purchased at one and the same time for cash, 
on the best tenns. 

I desire to have $50 each paid out of the final proceeds of my 
father's estate to the following named persons, to wit: To Allan 
Hammond, Esq., of Rockville, Tolland County, Conn., or to George 
Kellogtr, Es(|., former agent of the New England Company at that 
place, for the use and benefit of that company. Also, $50 to Silas 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 617 

Havens, formerly of Lewisburg, Summit County, Ohio, if he can be 
found. Also, $50 to a man of Stark County, Ohio, at Canton, who 
sued my father in his lifetime, through Judge Humphrey and Mr. 
Upsou of Akron, to be paid by J. R. Brown to the man in person, if 
he can be found ; his name I cannot remember. ^ly father made 
a compromise with the man by taking our house and lot at Munro- 
ville. I desire that any remaining balance that may become my due 
from my father's estate may be paid in equal amounts to my wife 
and to each of my children, and to the widows of Watson and Oliver 
Brown, by my brother. John Brown. 

John Avis, Witness. 

CODICIL. 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Dec. 2, 1859. 
It is my desire that my wife have all my personal property not 
previously disposed of by me ; and the entire use of all my lauded 
property during her natural life ; and that, after her death, the pro- 
ceeds of such land be equally divided between all my then living 
children ; and that what would be a child's share be given to the 
children of each of my two sons who fell at Harper's Ferry ; and that 
a child's share be divided among the children of my now living chil- 
dren who may die befure their mother (my present beloved wife). 
No formal will can be of use when my expressed wishes are made 
known to my dutiful and beloved family. John Brown. 

My dear Wife, — I have time to enclose the within and the 
above, which I forgot yesterday, and to bid you another farewell. 
** Be of good cheer," and God Almighty bless, save, comfort, guide, 
and keep you to the end ! 

Your affectionate husband, John Brown. 

This was undoubtedly the last work of the old hero with 
his pen. He had previously given directions for an in- 
scription on his tombstone, and now sent his wife this paper, 
which was brought to Mrs. Brown after the execution : — 

TO BE INSCRIBED ON THE OLD FAMILY MONUMENT AT NORTH ELBA. 

Oliver Brown, bom , 1839, was killed at Harper's Ferry, Va., 

Oct. 17, 1859. 

Watson Brown, born , 1835, was wounded at Harper's Ferry, 

Oct. 17, and died Oct. 19, 1859. 

(My wife can fill up the blank dates as above.) 

John Brown, born May 9, 1800, was executed at Charlestown, Va., 

Dec. 2, 1859. 



618 LIFE AND LETTEES. OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

Brown's frequent mention in these letters of his oppor- 
tunity to do good by preaching the truth to men who came 
to see him out of curiosity, or to labor with him for his sins, 
demands some explanation. Although fettered and guarded 
as no man had ever been in Virginia since the capture of 
John Smith by Powhatan and his Indians, John Brown was 
visited by the sachems and priests of the tribe then domi- 
nant in Powhatan's country, and by many good men who 
were moved by his courage and fidelity. To such persons 
Brown applied his touchstone of sincerity, and treated them 
as their character deserved, whatever their opinions. He 
was, of course, often visited by Virginia clergymen and 
itinerant preachers, desirous of praying with him and of 
converting him from his errors. One of these afterward 
said that when he offered to pray with Brown the old man 
asked if he was willing to fight, in case of need, for the free- 
dom of the slaves. Keceiving a negative reply, Brown said : 
" I will thank you to leave me alone ; your prayers would 
be an abomination to my God." To another he said that he 
" would not insult God by bowing down in prayer with any 
one who had the blood of the slave on his skirts." A Meth- 
odist preacher named March having argued to Brown in 
his cell in favor of slavery as " a Christian institution," his 
hearer grew impatient and replied : " My dear sir, you know 
nothing about Christianity; you will have to learn its A, 
B, C ; I find you quite ignorant of what the word Chris- 
tianity means." Seeing that his visitor was disconcerted by 
such plain speaking, Brown added, " I respect you as a gen- 
tleman, of course ; but it is as a heathen gentleman." ^ To 

1 This "heathen gentleman" seems to have left a snecessor at Charles- 
town, — the Presbyterian minister there in 1882, Ahner C. Hopkins by 
name, who in that year wrote to the Englisli author Thomas Hughes, cor- 
recting certain errors of fact concerning Brown, and then adding, ex mero 
motu, and by way of certifying his own Cluistian spirit : — 

" We know, and records prove, that John Brown, after full and fair trial before the 
proper civil tribunal, was duly convicted of murders, including a negro slave's. . . . 
The very copy of the Bible, owned and used by him in jail here, lies before me. Its 
passages touching 'oiipression,' etc., are heavily and frequently pencilled, but no pencil 
mark distinguishes or emphasizes a single passage that is distincticely Christian. He was 
religimis, hnt not Christian; religion was the crutch on which his fanaticism walked. 
It was the ' higher law ' religion, under whose baleful influence many tears have been 
wrung from the innocent, and the buttresses of governments have fairly crumbled, and 



I 



1859.] JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 619 

a lady who visited him iu prison he said : "I do not believe 
I shall deny my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, as I should 
if I denied my principles against slavery. Why, I preach 
against it all the time ; Captain Avis knows I do ; " whereat 
his jailer smiled and said, "Yes." A citizen of Charles- 
town, named Blessing, had dressed Brown's wounds while 
in prison, and had shown him other kind attentions, for 
which Brown, who was very scrupulous about acknowledg- 
ing and returning favors, desired to make him some acknowl- 
edgment. On one of the last days of November, therefore, 
in the last week of his life. Brown sent for Mr. Blessing, 
and asked him to accept his pocket Bible as a token of grat- 
itude. In this book, which was a cheap edition in small 
print, much worn by use. Brown had marked many hundred 
passages bearing witness more or less directly against hu- 
man slavery, by turning down the corner of a page and by 
heavy pencillings in the margin. On the fly-leaf he had 
written this : — 

To John F. Blessing, of Charlestown, Va., with the best wishes 
of tlie undersigned, and his sincere thanks for many acts of kindness 
received. There is no commentary iu the world so good, in order to 
a right understanding of this blessed book, as an honest, childlike, 
and teachable spirit. 

John Brown. 

Charlestown, Nov. 29, 1859. 

He had written his own name as owner of the book on 
the opposite page, and immediately following it was this 
inscription : — 

the order and stability of society have been made to tremble on your continent and ours. 
It has found further development in assassinations, — of the Cz.ir in Russia, of the Em- 
peror in Germany, of your own Lord Lieutenant and Secretary in Ireland, ;ind of oi;r 
own President. There are many points of resemblance between the behavior of John 
Brown and Guiteau; both claimed to be 'God's man,' to be doing God's work, to be 
receiving strength from God; and Guiteau exceeded Brown in the resolution with 
which he met death." 

"New Presbyter is but old priest writ large." I will venture to call 
this priest's attention to one or two passages " distinctively Christian." 
"But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they 
should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus." — Matt. xxvv. 20. " Then cried 
they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a 
robber. '" — John xviii. 40. 



620 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

'^ The leaves were turned down by him while in prison at Charles- 
town. But a small part of those passages which in the most positive 
language condeum oppression and violence are marked." 

Possibly the very last paper written by John Brown was 
this sentence, which he handed to one of his guards in the 
jail on the morning of his execution : — 

Charlestown, Va., Dec. 2, 1859. 
I. John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty 
land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now 
think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it 
might be done. 

"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission 
of sins." This was John Brown's old-fashioned theology, 
which the nation was so soon to verify by a fierce but salu- 
tary civil war. In my earliest serious conversation with 
him, in January, 1857, when he assured me that Christ's 
Golden Rule and Jefferson's Declaration meant the same 
thing, he said further : " I have always been delighted with 
the doctrine that all men are created equal ; and to my 
mind it is like the Saviour's command, ' Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself,' for how can we do that unless our 
neighbor is equal to ourself ? That is the doctrine, sir; and 
rather than have that fail in the world, or in these States, 
't would be better for a whole generation to die a violent 
death. Better that heaven and earth pass away than that 
one jot or one tittle of this be not fullilled." Such was the 
faith in which he died. 



1859.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. 621 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. 

'T^HE prison-life of Brown may be inferred from his let- 
-'- ters- ; but there were sayings of his, during the month 
between his sentence and its execution, which have been 
reported by those who talked with him in his fetters. To 
Mrs. Spring, of New York, who obtained admission to his 
cell November 6, he said : " I do not now reproach myself 
for my failure ; I did what I could. I think I cannot better 
serve the cause I love so much than to die for it ; and in 
my death I may do more than in my life. The sentence 
they have pronounced against me does not disturb me in the 
least ; this is not the first time I have looked death in the 
face. I sleep as peacefully as an infant ; or if I am wake- 
ful, glorious thoughts come to me, entertaining my mind. I 
do not believe I shall deny my Lord and Master Jesus 
Christ, in this prison or on the scaffold ; but I should do so if 
I denied my principles against slavery. I have been trained 
to hardships," added Brown, "but I have one unconquerable 
weakness ; I have always been more afraid of going into an 
evening party of ladies and gentlemen than of meeting a 
company of men with guns." An old Pennsylvania neigh- 
bor, Mr. Lowry, was permitted to see him in prison, and 
asked him about his Kansas campaigns. " Time and the 
honest verdict of posterity," said Brown, "■ will approve 
every act of mine to prevent slavery from being established 
in Kansas. I never shed the blood of a fellow-man, except 
in self-defence, or in promotion of a righteous cause." Dur- 
ing this conversation Governor Wise was reviewing the Vir- 
ginia militia near the prison, and the drums and trumpets 
made a great noise. His friend said : " Does this martial 
music annoy you ? " "■ Not in the least," said Brown, ^' it is 



622 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. 11859. 

inspiring. Tell my friends without that I am cheerful."^ 
A son of Governor Wise soon after accomjjanied a Virginia 
colonel to Brown's cell, when the colonel asked him if he 
desired the presence of a clergyman to give him "the con- 
solations of religion." Brown repeated what he had said to 
the Methodists, — that he did not recognize as Christians 
any slaveholders or defenders of slavery, lay or clerical ; add- 
ing that he would as soon be attended to the scaffold by 
"blacklegs" or robbers of the worst kind^asby slaveholding 
ministers ; if he had his choice he would rather be followed 
to his " public, murder," as he termed his execution, by 
" barefooted, barelegged, ragged slave children and their 
old gray -headed slave mother," than by such clergymen. " I 
should feel much prouder of such an escort," he said, " and 
I wish I could have it." From this saying of his, several 
times repeated, no doubt arose the legend, that on his way 
to the gallows he took up a little slave-child, kissed it, and 
gave it back to its mother's arms.^ On the same day with 
this interview, Brown was again questioned concerning the 
Pottawatomie executions, and said, as he uniformly had done 
since that deed, " I did not kill any of those men, but I 

^ " A music heard by thee alone 
To works as noble led thee on." 

Emerson's Threnody. 

2 << Virginia," said Wendell Phillips at Brooklyn, while Brown lay in 
prison, "is only another Algiers. The barbarous horde who gag each 
other, imprison women for teaching children to read, prohibit the Bible, 
sell men on the auction-block, abolish mariiage, condemn half their wo- 
men to prostitution, and devote themselves to the breeding of human 
beings for sale, is only a larger and blacker Algiers. The only prayer of 
a true man for such is, ' Gracious heaven ! unless they repent, send soon 
their Exmouth and Decatur.'" It was not long till Grant and Sheridan. 

3 It was physically impossible that this should have happened, for before 
Brown left the jail his hands were fastened behind his back, as usual with 
condemned criminals. His jailer, Avis, now dead, testified April 25, 188'2, 
thus : " Brown was between Sheriff Campbell and me, and a guard of sol- 
diers surrounded him and allowed no person to come between them and the 
prisoner, from the jail to the scaffold, except his escorts. . . . The only 
thing that he said at or on the scaffold was to take leave of us, and then, 
just about the lime the noo.se was adjusted, he said, ' Be quick.' I did 
not think his bearing on the scaflbld was cous|>icuous for its heroism, — yet 
not cowardlv." 



1859.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. (323 

approved of their killing." He expressed pleasure that his 
body was ordered by Governor Wise to be delivered to his 
wife for burial at North Elba, and requested his jailer to 
assist Mrs. Brown, not only in this, but in getting together 
the remains of his sons and the other farmers of North 
Elba who had been slain at Harper's Ferry, for burial with 
him, — expressing the wish that their bodies should be 
burned, and the bones and ashes conveyed to his Adirondac 
hf)me.i In regard to his own rescue from prison he had 
previously said : " I doubt if I ought to encourage any 
attempt to save my life. I may be wrong, but I think that 
my great object will be nearer its accomplishment by my 
death than by my life. I must give some thought to this." 
Having reflected on it, he said a few days before his death : 
'' I am sure my sons cannot look forward to my fate with- 
out some effort to rescue me ; but this only in case I am 
allowed to remain in prison for some time with no more 
than ordinary precautions against escape. ISTo such attempt 
will be made in view of the large military force now upon 
guard." In fact, he had intimated to his friends that he 
did not wish to be rescued,^ and it soon became evident to 
all, as it was directly revealed to Brown, that his death, 
like Samson's, was to be his last and greatest victory. 

1 He did not make this suggestion in regard to his own remains, but 
only of those who had then been dead six weeks ; nor did he suggest it to 
Mrs. Brown at all, as she told me in 1882. She added that the published 
account of her interview with her husband the day before his death was 
incorrect. 

2 I was in daily communication with Brown's friends during November, 
and learned this with certainty. Mr. Emerson proposed that some gentle- 
men from the North should visit Governor Wise, and urge upon him the 
reprieve of Brown, and Mr. Alcott offered to go on this errand. On the 
10th of November I answered Mr. Emerson's suggestion thus : — 

" There is hope in every effort to save Brown, but not much, as it would 
seem, in the representations of a private gentleman to Governor Wise, who 
is in this matter the servant of others. It is the Bellua viidtorum capil.um 
of Virginia that will execute the sentence if it is done ; and that is perhaps 
implacable. Escape, difficult as it seems, is probably Brown's best chance 
for life. If a reprieve, or an arrest of judgment for another month were 
possible, a rescue would not be so hard to manage. Brown's heroic char- 
acter is having its influence on his keepers, as we learn; but at present he 
doe.'i not v}ish to escape." 



624 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

*' Living or dying, thou hast fulfilled 
The work for which thou wast foretold 
To Israel, and now liest victorious 
Among thy slain, self-killed, — 
Not willingly, but tangled in the fold 
Of dire necessity ; whose law in death conjoined 
Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more 
Than all thy life had slain before." 

It was perhaps through the Russells, of Boston, the first 
of his personal friends to visit him, tliat we learned his in- 
tuition concerning a rescue. Judge Russell and his wife 
hastened from Boston as soon as it seemed expedient for 
any of his Antislavery associates to attempt the difficult 
task of an interview with Brown, — the former going to 
counsel with him as a lawyer in his defence, and Mrs. Rus- 
sell, with a woman's instinct, joining in this journey. She 
took her needle with her, mended his torn and cut gar- 
ments, sent the guard out of the room for a clothes-brush, 
and exchanged a few words privately with the martyr. Of 
this visit Judge Russell says : — 

" I was just in time to hear the sentence of death pronounced on 
Brown, and to hear that magnificent S]>eech in which, instead of as- 
suming tliat his hearere were Christians, and arguing on that basis, 
he said : ' I see a book kissed here vvliich I suppose to be the Bible, 
or at least the New Testament,' from which he iufen-ed that Chris- 
tianity was not quite unknown. I then went with Mrs. Russell to 
see him in the jail, and found him in the best of spirits. He said: 
' I have no fault to find with the manner of my death ; the disgrace 
of hanging does not trouble me in the least. Indeed, I know that 
the very errors by whicli rny scheme was marred were decreed be- 
fore the world was made. I had no more to do with the course I 
pursued than a shot leaving a cannon has to do with the spot where 
it shall fall.' He was satisfied with what he had done." 

I pass over the farewell between Brown and his Avife the 
day before his death ; it was simple and heroic, in keeping 
with the character of both. They supped with the jailer in 
his own apartment; and thus, perhaps for the first time, 
the condemned man was allowed to leave his cell, after sen- 
tence and before the day of execution. Upon that morn- 
ing, Dec. 2, 1859, he was led from his cell to say farewell 



1859.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. 625 

to his companions. Copeland and Shields Green were con- 
fined together ; Cook and Coppoc were in another cell, and 
Stephens by himself. To the two faithful colored men 
Brown said : " Stand up like men, and do not betray your 
friends ! " To Cook, who had made a confession, Brown 
said : " You have made false statements, — that I sent you 
to Harper's Ferry : you knew I protested against your com- 
ing." Cook demurred, but dropped his head, and replied at 
last, "Captain Brown, you and I remember differently." 
To Coppoc, Brown said : " You also made false statements, 
but I am glad to hear you have contradicted them. Stand 
up like a man ! " He shook the hands of all, and gave to 
each a small silver coin for remembrance. With Stephens 
his interview was more intimate ; for he had greatly relied 
on this stout soldier. " Good by, Captain," said Stephens ; 
" I know you are going to a better land." '' I know I am," 
was the reply ; " bear up, as you have done, and never be- 
tray your friends." Brown would not visit the sixth pris- 
oner, Hazlett, — always persisting that he did not know 
such a man.^ 

Meantime the soldiers of 'Virginia, more than two thou- 
sand in number, were mustered in the field where the gal- 
lows had been erected, with cannon and cavalry, and all the 
pomp of war. At eleven o'clock Brown came forth from 
his prison, walking firmly and cheerfully, and mounted the 
wagon which was to carry him to the scaffold. He sat be- 
side his jailer, and cast his eyes over the town, the soldiery, 
the near fields, and the distant hills, behind which rose the 
mountains of the Blue Kidge. He glanced at the sun and 
sky, taking his leave of earth, and said to his companions : 
" This is a beautiful country ; I have not cast my eyes over 
it before, — that is, in this direction." Reaching the scaf- 
fold, he ascended the steps, and was the first to stand upon 
it, — erect and calm, and with a "smile on his face. With 
his pinioned hands he took off his hat, cast it on the scaf- 
fold beside him, and thanked his jailer again for his kindness, 

1 One of Brown's prison guards says : " He was a brave man, and had 
the utmost contemj)t for a coward. He did not seem to care what became 
of him after the capture, but his whole mind seemed to be bent on savin" 
the men who were taken with him ; and he pretended not to know them." 

40 



626 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

submitting quietly to be closer pinioned and to have the 
cap drawn over his eyes and the rope adjusted to his neck. 
" I can't see, gentlemen," said he ; " you must lead me ; " 
and he was placed on the drop of the gallows. '' I am ready 
at any time, — do not keep me waiting," were his last re- 
ported words. No dying speech was permitted to him, nor 
were the citizens allowed to approach the scaffold, which was 
surrounded only by militia.-' He desired to make no speech, 
but only to endure his fate with dignity and in silence. 
The ceremonies of his public murder were duly performed ; 
and when his body had swung for nearly an hour on the 
gibbet, in sight of earth and heaven, for a witness against 
our nation, it was lowered to its coffin and delivered to his 
widow, who received and accompanied it through shud- 
dering cities to the forest hillside where it lies buried. 
The most eloquent lips in America pronounced his funeral 
eulogy beside this grave ; while in hundreds of cities and 
villages his death was sadly commemorated. The Civil 
War followed hard upon his execution ; and the place of his 
capture and death became the frequent battle-ground of the 
fratricidal armies. Not until freedom was declared, and 
the slaves liberated as Brown had planned, — by force, — 
was victory assured to the cause of the country. 

I knew John Brown well. He was what all his speeches, 
letters, and actions avouch him, — a simple, brave, heroic 
person, incapable of anything selfish or base. But above 
and beyond these personal qualities, he was what we may 
best term a historic character ; that is, he had, like Cromwell, 
a certain predestined relation to the political crisis of his 
time, for which his character fitted him, and which, had he 
striven against it, he could not avoid. Like Cromwell and 
all the great Calvinists, he was an unquestioning believer in 
God's fore-ordination and the divine guidance of human 

1 Among the Vii-pjinia militia, pompously parading, who siirronnded the 
scaffold, was John Wilkes Booth (after\^ai'd the assassin of Aliraham \a\\- 
coln), wlio was then an actor at Riclnnond. and left liis theatre to join Com- 
pany F from that city. This fact is given by the Virginia correspondent 
of the "New York Tribune," Nov. 28, 1859. Booth assisted, therefore, 
at the two chief murders of his time^ — " Washington slaying Spartacus," 
as Victor Hugo said, and Sicarius slaying the second Washington. 



1859.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. 627 

affairs. Of course, he could not rank with Cromwell or with 
many inferior men in leadership ; but in this God-appointed, 
inflexible devotion to his object in life he was inferior to no 
man ; and he rose in fame far above more gifted persons be- 
cause of this very fixedness and simplicity of character. 
His renown is secure. 

A few words may be given to the personal traits of this 
hero. When I first saw him, he was in his flfty-seventh 
year, and though touched with age and its infirmities, was 
still vigorous and active, and of an aspect which would have 
made him distinguished anywhere among men who know 
how to recognize courage and greatness of mind. At that 
time he was close shaven, and no flowing beard, as in later 
years, softened the expression of his firm wide mouth and 
positive chin. That beard, long and gray, which nearly all 
his portraits now show, added a picturesque finish to a face 
that was in all its features severe aiid masculine, yet with a 
latent tenderness. His eyes were those of an eagle, — 
piercing blue-gray in color, not very large, looking out from 
under brows 

"Of dauntless courage and considerate pride," 

and were alternately flashing with energy, or drooping and 
hooded like the eyes of an eagle. His hair was dark-brown, 
sprinkled with gray, short and bristling, and shooting back 
from a forehead of middle height and breadth ; his nose was 
aquiline ; his ears large ; his frame angular ; his voice deep 
and metallic ; his walk positive and intrepid, though com- 
monly slow. His manner was modest, and in a large com- 
pany diffident ; he was by no means fluent of speech, but 
his words were always to the point, and his observations 
original, direct, and shrewd. His mien was serious and 
patient rather than cheerfiU ; it betokened the " sad wise 
valor " which Herbert praises ; but though earnest and often 
anxious, it was never depressed. In short, he was then, to 
the eye of insight, what he afterward seemed to the world, 
— a brave and resolved man, conscious of a work laid upon 
him, and confident that he should accomplish it. His 
figure was tall, slender, and commanding; his bearing 
military ; and his garb showed a singular blending of the 



628 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

soldier and the deacon. He had laid aside in Chicago 
the torn and faded summer garments which he wore 
throughout his Kansas campaign, and I saw him at one 
of those rare periods in his life when his clothes were 
new. He wore a complete suit of brown broadcloth or ker- 
seymere, cut in the fashion of a dozen years before, and 
giving him the air of a respectable deacon in a rural parish. 
But instead of a collar he had on a high stock of patent 
leather, such as soldiers used to wear, a gray military over- 
coat with a cape, and a fur cap. He was, in fact, a Puritan 
soldier, such as were common in Cromwell's day, though not 
often seen since. Yet his heart was averse to bloodshed, 
gentle, tender, and devout. 

Mr. Leonard, already quoted, who knew him at the age 
of fifty, says : — 

"It is almost impossible to convey by writing his appearance. I 
can see it plainly, — that firm, decided set of the mouth, a certain 
nervous twitch of the head ; but the flasli of his eye, who can de- 
scribe it f It spoke the soul of the man, and carried conviction to 
every one that lie was in tliorough earnest. In Red[iath's ' Life ' 
there is a good engraving of tlie old man, when he liad drawn him- 
self up into liis lofty look, which he sometimes did ; but generally 
he carried his head pitched forward and a little down, and shoved his 
right shoulder forward in walking. And he could look pleasant, — 
as I have witnessed many a time, when I have been bantering hiin 
about something." 

Frederick Douglass says : — 

" In person he was lean, strong, and sinewy ; of the best New 
England mould, built for times of trouble, fitted to grapple with the 
flintiest hardships. Clad in plain American woollen, shod in boots of 
cowhide leather, and weai'ing a cravat of the same substantial mate- 
rial ; under six feet high, less than a hundred and fifty pounds in 
weight, aged about fifty, — he presented a figure straight and sym- 
metrical as a mountain pine. His bearing was singularly impres- 
sive. His head was not large, but compact and high. His hair was 
coarse, strong, slightly gray, and closely trimmed, and grew low on 
his forehead. His face was smoothly shaved, and revealed a strong 
square mouth, supported by a broad and prominent chin. His eyes 
were bluish gray, and in conversation they were full of light and 
fire. When on the street, he moved with a long, springing, rac<^- 



1859.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. 629 

horse step, absorbed by his own reflections, neither seeking nor 
shunning observation." 

Such were his outward traits and belongings. The in- 
ward man was of singular faith and constancy. Of his last 
few months in life Mr. Wilder speaks thus : — 

" Think of the slow movement to the Kennedy farm, the mystery, 
the anxiety about money, the oj^position of Douglass, the resignation 
of his leadership by Brown, bad health, — in that most dispiriting 
of all diseases, the ague, — and yet the man goes forward ! What 
courage, what faith ! Common men live for years in despair, with 
only ordinary bad luck to contend with ; but here is a man abso- 
lutely alone, exiled from family, among hostile strangers, where bar- 
barism is made popular by law and by fishion, — yet never in de- 
spair. Why this contrast ? He believed in God and justice, and in 
nothing else ; we believe in everything else, but not in God." 

It is easy now to perceive the true mission of Brown, and 
to measure the force of the avalanche set in motion by him. 
But to the vision of genius and the illuminated moral sense 
this was equally perceptible in 1859-60 ; and it was declared, 
in words already cited, by Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau. 
'No less clearly and prophetically was it declared by Victor 
Hugo, and by the saintly pastor of Way land, Edmond Sears. 
On the day of Brown's execution, and in the midst of the 
funeral services we were holding at Concord, Mr. Sears, who 
had made the opening prayer, wrote these lines in the Town 
Hall,i where Brown had twice addressed the sons of those 
yeomen who fought at Concord Bridge : — 

" Not any spot six feet by two 

Will hold a man like thee ; 
John Brown will tramp the shaking earth 

From Blue Ridge to the sea, 
Till the strong angel come at last 

And opes each dungeon door, 
And God's Great Charter liolds and waves 

O'er all his humble, poor. 

1 Mr. Alcott's Diary (Dec;. 2, 1859) says : "Ellen Emerson sends me 
her fair copy of the Martyr Service. At 2 p. m. we meet at the Town Hall, 
our own townspeople present mostly, and many from the adjoining towns. 
Simon Brown is chairman ; the readings are by Thoreau, Emerson, C. 
Bowers, and Alcott ; and Sanborn's ' Dirge ' is sung by the company, 



630 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. 11859. 

"And then the humble poor will come 

In that far- distant day, 
And from the felon's nameless grave 

They '11 bni.sh the leaves away ; 
And gray old men will point the spot 

Beneath the pine-tree shade, 
As children ask with streaming eyes 

Where Old John Brown is laid." 

On the same day, from his place of exile in Guernsey, 
Victor Hugo thus addressed the American republic : — 

" At the thought of the United States of America, a majestic form 
rises iu the mind, — Washington. In this country of Washington 
what is now taking place f There are slaves iu the South ; and this 
most monstrous of inconsistencies offends the logical conscience of 
the North. To free these black slaves, John Brown, a white man, a 
free man, began the work of their deliverance in Virginia. A Puri- 
tan, austerely religious, inspired by the evangel, ' Christ liath set 
us free,' he raised the cry of emancipation. But the slaves, unmanned 
by servitude, made no response; for slavery stops the ears of the 
soul. John Brown, thus left alone, began the contest. Witli a hand- 
ful of heroic men he kept up the fight ; riddled with bullets, his two 
youngest sons, sacred martyrs, falling at his side, he was at last 
captured. His trial ? It took place, not in Turkey, but in America. 
Such things are not done with impunity under the eyes of the civil- 
ized world. The conscience of mankind is an open eye ; let the 
court at Charlestown understand — Hunter and Parker, the slave- 
holding jurymen, the whole population of Virginia — that they are 
watched. This has not been done in a corner. John Brown, con- 
demned to death, is to be hanged to-day. His hangman is not the 
attorney Hunter, nor the judge Parker, nor Governor Wise, nor the 
little State of Virginia, — his hangman (we shudder to think it and 
say it !) is the whole American republic. . . . Politically speaking, 
the murder of Brown will be an irrevocable mistake. It will deal 
the Union a concealed wound, which will finally sunder the States. 
Let America know and consider that there is one thing more shock- 
ing than Cain killing Abel, — it is Washington killing Spartacus." 

standing. The bells are not rung. I think not more than one or two of 
Brown's friends wished them to be ; I did not. It was more fitting to 
signify our sorrow in the subdued waj', and silently, than by any clamor 
of steeples or the awakening of angry feelings or any conflict, as needless 
as unamiable, between neighbors. The services are affecting and impres- 
sive, distinguished by modesty, simplicity, and earnestness, — worthy alike 
of the occasion and of the man." 



1859.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN. 631 

A few months later (March 30, 1860) Victor Hugo wrote 
again : — 

" Slavery in all its fomis will disappear. What the South slew 
last December was not John Brown, but Slavery. Henceforth, no 
matter what President Buchanan may say in his shameful message, 
the American Union must be considered dissolved. Between the 
North and the South stands the gallows of Brown. Union is no 
longer possible : such a crime cannot be shared." 

Again, upon the triumph of Garibaldi in Sicily, Victor 
Hugo said (June 18, I860): — 

" Grand are the liberators of mankind ! Let them hear the grate- 
ful applause of the nations, whatever their fortune ! Yesterday we 
gave our tears; to-day our hosannas are heard. Providence deals in 
these compensations. John Brown failed in America, but Garibaldi 
has triumphed in Europe. Mankind, shuddering at the infamous 
gallows of Charlestown, takes courage once more at the flashing 
sword of Catalafimi." ^ 

Although the course of events in America did not follow 
the exact line anticipated by the French republican, the 
general result was what he had foreseen, — that the achieve- 
ment and death of John Brown made future compromises 
between slavery and freedom impossible. What he did in 
Kansas for a single State, he did in Virginia for the whole 
nation, — nay, for the whole world. 

It has been sometimes asked in what way Brown per- 
formed this great work for the world, since he won no bat- 
tle, headed no party, repealed no law, and could not even 
save his own life from an ignominious penalty. In this 
respect he resembled Socrates, whose position in the world's 
history is yet fairly established ; and the parallel runs even 
closer. When Brown's friends urged upon him the des- 
perate possibilities of a rescue, he gave no final answer, 

^ Victor Hugo's " Actes et Paroles pendant I'Exil " (1859-60). In the 
Edition Definitive of his complete works, wliicli was still going through the 
press at his death, in 1885, the antlior added this note to the passages 
cited above : "Victor Hugo avait, a propos de John Brown, pre'dit la 
guerre civile a V Anierique, et, a jinjpos dc Garibaldi, piedit I'unite ^ I'ltalie. 
Ces deux predictions se realiserent." He had a right to claim this. 



632 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. [1859. 

until at last came this reply, — that he " would not walk 
out of the prison if the door was left open." He added, as 
a personal reason for this choice, that his relations with 
Captain Avis, his jailer, were such that he should hold it a 
breach of trust to be rescued. There is an example even 
higher than that of Socrates, which history will not fail to- 
hold up, — that Person of whom his slayers said: "He 
saved others ; himself he cannot save." 

Here is touched the secret of Brown's character, — abso- 
lute reliance on the Divine, entire disregard of the present, 
in view of the promised future. 

" For best belViiMuled of the God 
He who in evil times, 
Warned by an inward voice, 
Heeds not the darkness and the dread, 
Biding by his rule and choice ; 
Feeling only the iiery thread 
Leading over heroic ground 
(Walled with mortal terror round) 
To the aim which him allures, — 
And the sweet heaven his deed secures." 



Note. — In Chapter XV., pp. 537 and .548, John Brown, Jr., speaks 
of an all'air at "St. J.," in Missouri, which was ascribed to his father. 
John Brown had nothing to do with this gallant action of his old friend 
Abbott, who had rescued Branson in 1855. Briefly, the facts were these : 
"Dr. John Doy, imprisonetl in St. Joseph, Mo., for abducting slaves from 
that State, was released July 23, 1859, by Kansas men, led by Major 
James B. Abbott, now living at De Soto, Johnson County. They entered 
the jail at night, under pretence of wishing to conline a horse-thief. The 
rescue was admirably managed, and its moral influence throughout Mis- 
souri and the whole South was very great." 

In Chapter XVI., p. 576, the expression, "He was forced to rise from 
what was feared to be his dying bed," does not refer to his attitude while 
the indictment was read, but to his presence in the court-room. 



INDEX. 



^BBOTT, Major James B., rescues 
Branson, 207, 212; purcliases rifles, 
214; rescues Dr. Doy 032. 

Adair, Rev. S. L., 188, 252, 270 ; shel- 
ters the Browns, 275 ; opinion of 
Brown, 327 ; letters from, 322, 415. 

Adams, Cyrus, Border Ruffianism de- 
scTibed,'327-328. 

Adams, .John Q., Journal quoted, 118. 

Adams, Henry J., 225. 

Adirondacs, the, grave of Capt. John 
Brown, 3; visit of Jolin Brown, 44; 
pioneer Vie of Brown, 97; descrip- 
tion of, 90; R. H. Dana's impres- 
sions of, 102. 

Akron, Ohio, imprisonment of«John 
Blown at, 55, 00, 88. 

.Aicott, A. Bronson, 91; record of 
i^rown, 504; Diary quoted, 029. ' 

Aliini^ham's " Touciistone," iv. 

Anderson, Jeremiah, letter from, 545. 

Anderson, Osborne, 550, 611. 

Andrew, Gov. John A., quoted, 327, 
500. 

Arago, Etienne, 120. 

Arms furnished for Kansas, 212-215, 
342, 349, 350, 351, 494. 

Arny, W. F. M., 352 : letter to Brown, 
302; testimony of, 421. 

Articles of Enlistment of Kansas reg- 
ulars, 287. 

Assing, Miss Ottilia, 432. 

Ati-hison, David II., advice to Missou- 
rians, 164; speeches of, 105, 234; 
appeals to Missourians. 309; leads 
aitaclv upon Lawrence, 235. 

Atlantic Mcmthly, quoted, 561. 

Austin, "old Kill Devil," 271; adven- 
tures of, 285, 286. 

Avis, Captain John, 587, 619. 



gAGEHOT, Mr., quoted, 470. 

Baker, Mr., threatened with death, 
254. 

Baldwin City, 292. 

Baldwin, Mr., testifies to Brown's 
integritv, 87. 

Baptisteville, 276, 301, 309. 

Barber, Mr., murder of, 218; his body, 
243.- 

"Beecher Bibles," 212. 

Benjamin, Jacob, 230, 254, 271, 288. 

"Black Jack," 244, 291; battle of, 
291, 303. 

Blair, Ciiarles, contracts to deliver 
spears, 377; letter from, 378. 

Blanc, Louis, 120. 

Blessing, John F., receives a Bible 
from Brown, 619. 

Bondi, August, 230, 254 ; story of the 
Pottawatomie executions, 271 ; re- 
ports of, 292, 293. 

Booth, J. Wilkes, at Brown's execu- 
tion, 026. 

Border Ruffians, watchword, 172 ; 
treatment of judges of election, 173, 
175: aspect of, 181. 182; brutalities, 
206. 225, 2o8; anger, 274; activity, 
312 ; burn house of Ottawa Jones, 323 ; 
met by Brown and Montgomery, 480. 

Brackett, the sculptor, visit to Brown in 
prison, 510; makes bust of Brown, 
517. 

Branson, Jacob, rescue of, 207; tells 
story of, 210. 

Brown, Anne, story told by, 531. 

Brown, Ellen, 43, 387. 

Brown, Frederick, removes to Kansas, 
202, 255; shot, 317; death, 325. 

Brown, Jason, 35, 41 ; story of oath, 
138; death of son, 189; arrested, 238; 



G34 



INDEX. 



sufferings in Kansas, 238-242; ad- 
ventures and capture, 275, 276, 277, 
278; anecdotes of campaign, 320; of 
burnaig of Ottawa Jones's iiouse, 
322; mentioned by his father, GOO, 
616. 

Brown, John, 1st, weaver and citizen 
of Duxbury, ]. 

Brown, John, 2d, of Windsor, birth, 
2; marriage and children, 3. 

Brown, John, marriage of, 2. 

Brown, Captain John, birtli, 3; death, 
3 ; tomb, 3 ; tombstone at North Elba, 
11 4, 375. 

Brown, John, parentage, 3, 12; hatred 
of slavery an inheritance, 10, 11 ; 
his own account of childhood and 
3'outh, 12-17 ; becomes converted, 
15, 31; tenacity of purpose, IG; a 
tanner and currier, IG, 32; marries 
Dianthe Liisk, 17, 33 ; visits Boston, 
17; guest of ilr. George L. Steams, 
17; writes sketch of earl}- life, 17; 
scanty education, 19; relations to 
his father, Owen, 19, 20, 21, 22; 
studies surve^'ing, 32; shelters fugi- 
tive slaves, 35; children by first 
marriage, 35; death of wife, 36; 
kindness to colored servants, 37 ; 
testimony of family, 38, 91; favorite 
books, 38; makes a compact with 
his sons to labor for emancipation, 
39; condiu^t in family, 40; devises 
schemes for educating the Negro, 40, 
41; in Randolph as tanner, second 
marriage, 42; children b}' second 
marriage, 43; loss of infants, 43; de- 
votion to children, 44, 45; growing 
toleration in old age, 53; a true 
Yankee, 54; indorses for friend and 
loses farm, 55; in jail at Akron, 55; 
a bankrupt, 56; business integrity, 
50; a shepherd at Richfield. 58; ad- 
vice to wile, 61 ; becomes wool-grow- 
er and dealer, 61, 63; returns to 
New England, 03; at Springfield, 
63; an agent, 64; visited by Doug- 
lass, 6G; loses four children, 69; 
breeds race-horses at Franklin, 69; 
visits Europe, 67-70; delicacy of 
touch in handling wool, 70; opin- 
ions of England and of German 
farming, 71; of N'apoleon, 71; visits 



the Continent, 73 ; returns home, 
73; views on early rising, 76; busi- 
ness troubles, 78, 83; on "knock- 
ing" spirits, 78; law-suits, 82, 83, 
84, 87 ; the Boston trial, 79, 83 ; 
again a shepherd, 85 ; advice to 
son, 85; probity of life, 86; fam- 
ily government, 91 ; devotion to 
his father, 94 ; introduces himself 
to Gerrit Smith, 97 ; life at North 
Elba, 97-100 ; interest in colored 
people there, 101, 104; love for the 
region, 105 ; carries tombstone of 
his grandfather to North Elba, 114; 
the task of his life, 116; method 
for emancipation, 119 ; a Bible 
worshipper, 121; creed, 122; ad- 
vice to League of Gileadites, 124; 
points of resemblance to Franklin, 
131 ; concern for f iigiti\ e slaves, 131 ; 
opinion of the Negro's capacity, 
137; Si)artan mode of life, 67, 137, 
138; home life, 139, 146; in the 
school of the Prophets, 147; a far- 
mer, 152; a disciple of Jefferson, 
171; journey to Kansas, 199, 200, 
202; his first campaign, 217; w^ill 
not pay illegal taxes, 228 ; visits pro- 
slavery camp as surveyor, 229; tells 
story of destruction of Lawrence, 
236-238 ; of events in Kansas, 242- 
244; his Pottawatomie executions, 
251, 258, 259, 264; his reasons given, 
270; results of the deed. 279, 280; 
in retreat, 294; meeting with Red- 
path, 294, 295; victory at B];i<k 
Jack, 2,18, 299, .300, 304; talk with 
Col. Phillips, .306, 307; joins forces 
of General Lane, 308; his name a 
terror, 309; best known name in 
Kansa«, 324; autograph account of 
attack on Lawrence, 332; in Chicago, 
341 ; esteemed by Free State settlers, 
366, 417; addresses L'gislative com- 
mittee, 372; visits North El ha, 374; 
at Concord, 380; makes will, 385; 
receives aid, 399; expedition de- 
layed, 405; inaction, 406; disinter- 
estedness, 407; V'irginia plan, 418; 
dealings with Hugh Forbes, 432; 
with Gerrit Smith, 438, 439 ; pathetic 
letters, 440-444; personality. 446; 
enjoyment of Plutarch, 449; makes 



INDEX. 



635 



arrangements for Virginia plan. 457; 
leaves Hoston with money and arms, 
464; Provisional Constitution, 464, 
469; alias Sliubel Morgan, 473; at 
Fort Snyder, 474; his Parallels, 481; 
retreat from Southern Kansas, 484, 
485, 486; captures pursuers, 484; at 
Tabor, 488; at Grinnell, 489; his 
friends, 495-518; relations with his 
family, 496; describes himself, 511; 
not actuated hf revenge, 512 ; in 
Maryland, 527; rents Kennedy farm, 
528; confers with Uoiiglass, 538; op. 
position to campaign at Harper's 
Ferry, 541; sniallness of force, 546 ; 
musters followers, 552; takes Harp- 
er's Ferry, 553, 554; wounded and 
captured, 559; questioned by Senator 
Mason tt uL, 562-569; conversation 
with Governor Wise, 570. 571 ; 
speeches at trial, 572; pronounced 
guilty. 575; his life in i)rison, 576- 
625; sentenced, 583; last speech, 584; 
joyful in tribulations, 589, 594, 596, 
' 609; no murderous intention, 604, 
605; last letter to wife, 605; to sis- 
ters, 608; to family, 613; last will, 
616; preaching in prison, 618, 619; 
farewell to wife, 624; no wish for 
rescue, 623; on the way to scaffold, 
625; execution, 626; character, 626; 
personal traits, 627 ; his true mission, 
629; secret of his character, 632. 

Krown, John, Jr., 35', 36 ; recollections 
of Hudson, 34; statement as to 
father's business life, 87; childish 
recollections, 91; views of Nerth 
Elba, 105; emigration to Kansas, 
188; second campaign in Kansas, 
236 ; arrest and sufferings, 238. 241 ; 
• testimony as to Pottawatomie execu- 
tions, 260; resigns captaincy, 27v3; 
insanity of, 273, 274 ; adventures 
of, 276; a prisoner, 310; Virginia 
plan confided to, 450, 451; organ- 
izes forces in Canada, 536. 

Brown, Mary Anne Day, becomes 
second wife to John Brown, 42; 
their children, 43; invalidism, 106; 
described, 113; sympathy with hus- 
band's plans, 116; reticence, 408; 
self-sacrifice, 413 : story of life, 497. 

Brown, Mary and Priscilla, 2. 



Brown, Martha, marries Peter Brown, 
2; their children, 2. 

Brown, C)liver, 43. 193, 198, 218. 242, 
293; with Mr. Blair. 415; in Mary- 
land, 527; killed at Harper's Ferry, 
579; bequest of, 97, 242. 

Brown, Owen, the elder, removes to 
Ohio from Connecticut, 4; autobi- 
ography, 4; shoemaking and farm- 
ing, 4, 5; travels, 5; with Rev. 
Mr. Hallock, 6; marries Ruth Mills, 
6; birth of first child, 6; at Nor- 
folk, 7; at Torrington, 7; in Ohio, 
7; death of wife, 8; marries Sally 
Root, 9; their children, 9; death of 
second wife, 10; hatred of slavery, 
10, 11; letters to his son, John 
Blown, 19, 20; relations to son, 20, 
21, 22, 152, 221. 

Brown, Owen, 35, 238, 242; adventures 
after the Pottawatomie executions, 
275, 276; views of men and things 
in Kansas, 315; in Maryland, 527; 
escape from Harper's Ferry, 611. 

Brown, Peter, carpenter in Plymouth, 
1; marriage, children, and death, 2. 

Brown, Ruth, recollections, 37 : bap- 
tism, 37; marriage and life, 75. 77, 
81; reminiscences of North Elba, 
99-104; of Mr. Dana's visit, 101; 
in California, 115; letter from, 441. 

Bown, R. P., 225; his murder. 281. 

Brown, Salmon, 26, 30, 42-43, 99, 198, 
206, 261, 290-293, 313. 

Brown, Sarah, 43, 322, 499. 

Brown, Watson, 43, 341; at Chambers- 
burg, 542; letters to wife, 542, 549; 
wounded at Harper's Ferry, 555; 
death, 579; story of death, 611. 

Buchanan, James, a servant of the 
slave-power, 166; presidential can- 
didate, and election of, 284. 

Buford, Jefferson, in Kansas, 228, 230, 
260. 

Burnell, Levi, letter to O. Brown, 135. 



r~^ABOT, Dr., raises money for Kan- 
sas, 213 ; member of National 
Kansas Committee, 352-354; dies 
in 1885, vi. 

Canada, a refuge, 469; Brown's expe- 
dition to, 484, 491. 



636 



INDEX. 



Canton, or West Simsbury, 4, 376. 

Carpenter, 0. A., 292; mission of, 
29:j. 

Cass, General, as captain, 20. 

Cato, Judge, 243, 278. 

Century Magazine, Captain Danger- 
field's account quoted, 556. 

Chapin, the Messrs., testimonial to 
Brown, 343. 

Chapman, ChieWnstice, testimony as 
to Brown's integrity, 87. 

Chase, Cliief-Justice, letters to Brown, 
36i. 

Child, Mrs. Lydia Maria, letter from 
John Bni-wn, 580. 

Christian, James, story of the Potta- 
watomie executions, 269. 

Civil war in Kansas, 160-343. 

Circular of Jolin Bi'own, 63. 

Clay, Henry, supports Fugitive Slave 
Bill, 123; advocates Missouri Com- 
promise, 161. 

Cleveland and Titus, charges against 
Perkins and Brown, 82. 

Clifford, Miss Betsey, anecdotes re- 
lated bv, 146. 

Cochrane!! Ben, 297, 301, 302. 

Code, Slave, given to Kansas, 177, 
178. 

Coleman, E. A., statement of, 258, 
260. 

Coleman, Franklin, 206. 

Collins, Samuel, murdere I, 206. 

Collinsville, 375, 376. 

Committees for Kansas, 344, 355. 

Company, Emigrant Aid, 163. 

Congressional Committee of 1856, 173. 

Connecticut, contingent, 3; slavery 
abolished in, 11. 

Conway, iMartin F., resigns, 176; ad- 
vice of, 211; visits Reeder, -387. 

Cook, John E., 423 ; censured by Realf, 
471; by Brown, 625. 

Copeland, John A., 546, 625. 

Coppoc, Edwin, speech to Virginians, 
425 ; at Harper's Ferry, 553, 625. 

Coionado. Vasquez de, in Kansas, 
160. 

Covenant of Kansas Regulars, 287. 

Crandall, Prudence, arrested and 
house burned, 42. 

Cromwell and Brown, 247, 626. 

Gushing, Caleb, tr.al before, 79. 80. 



J) ANA, RICHARD H., visits North 
Elba, 102; describes Brown, 103, 
104. 
Dangerfield, Captain, narrative of, 550 
Davis, Jefferson, Secretary of War in 
1856, 236; manifesto concerning 
Kansas, 284. 
Day, Marj' Anne. See Brown. 
Day, Orson, 236 ; prisoner, 238. 
Dayton, Captain, 228, 262. 
Delamater, Mr.,stor3' of Brown at Rich- 
mond, 90. 
Delahay, Mark, 184. 
De Soto, 160. 
Deitzler, G. W., 212; obtains rifles, 

215, 216. 
Doniphan, 184, 206. 
Douglass, Frederick, describes Brown's 
life at Springfield, 66; "Life and 
Times" quoted, 418; visited by 
Brown, 433; confers with Brown at 
Chambersburg, 53S; letters to and 
from, 443, 519, 540, 541; describes 
Brown, 628. 
Dow, Charles, murdered, 206, 210. 
Doyles, the, 230 ; execution of, 237, 251, 

264; antecedents of, 272. 
Doy, Dr. John, .632. 
Dred Scott decision, 167, 186. 
Dunlop, H. L., describes attack ou 

Lawrence, 333. 
Dunn, Charles, 226. 
Dutisnc, 160. 

Dutch Henry, death of, 256, 331. 
Dutch Henry's Crossing, 206, 252, 255, 

262, 267. " 
"Dutch William," 253, 272. 



T7ARLY Life of John Brown, 12-17; 
of John Brown, Jr., 91 ; of Rutl» 
Brown, .37, 93. 

Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, Sermon on 
Slavery, 11. 

Eggleston, Mary, marriage of, 2. 

Epitaphs written by John Brown, 3,617. 

Emerson, R. W., declines to write 
Life of John Brown, 18; welcomes 
Kossuth, 146; speech at Salem. 495; 
a friend to Brown, 500, 501: quoted, 
116, 170, 180, 500, 502, 507, 623, 632. 

Emigrant .Md Company of New Eng- 
land, 163 ; hotel built by, 233 ; urms 



INDEX. 



mi 



sent to Kansas by, 214, 344, 349; 
nature of, 347. 
Essex County, John Brown's life in, 
7G; opinions of, 77. 

TT'AYETTE, Mr., sworn to secrecy, 
138. 

Flint's Survey, 32. 

Flovd, Secretary, warning sent to, 
543. 

Forbes, Hugh, Brown's drill-master, 
358; his Manual, 389; character of, 
390, 425, 431; at Tabor, -399, 422; 
treachery of, 425, 456, 458; letters 
of, 426, 460; letters to, 429, 432, 459, 

Forbes, John M., 71, 493; letter to, 
493. 

Foray in Virginia, 519, et seq. 

Foster, C.A., 228, 230. 

Francis, Dr., testimony as to " Kansas 
Regulators," 344. 

Franklin, Benjamin, and John Brown 
com]iared, 131. 

Franklin, Ohio, Brown at, 69. 

Frederick the Great, sword of, 552, 554. 

Friends of Brown, — Emerson, 500; 
Thoreau, 502; Alcott, 504; George 
and Mary Stearns, 507; Theodore 
Parker, 512; Dr. Howe, Colonel 
Hgginson, 514 ; Thomas Russell, 
512, 624; F. B. S;inborn, Gerrit 
Smith, et al., 517. 

Fugitive Slave Bill, enactment of, 123; 
Brown's opinion of, 106. 

QARIBALDI, 431; John Brown com- 
pared to, 123. 

Geary, Governor, an upright Democrat, 
284 ; reaches Kansas, 328 ; farewell 
address, 329; injustice done to, by 
Brown, 333 ; friendly feeling to 
Brown, 338, 339. 

Giddings, Joshua R., letter to John 
Brown, 224. 

Gileadites, League of, 124; resolutions 
of Springfield branch of, 126. 

Gilpatrick, Dr., 256, 266. 

Gladstone, Thomas H., book quoted, 
175; views of Kansas Legislature, 
177; impressions of Kansas, 181, 182. 

Glanville, Jerome, 289, 270. 

Grflbam, Dr., 224. 



Grant, George, testimony of, 255, 331. 

Green, Shields, 539, 625. 

Grimes, J. W., of Iowa, letter to, 

355. 
Grinnell, Brown at, 488. 



TTALE, Rev. Edward E., organizes 
Emigrant Aid Company, 163 ; 
quoted, 164; story of the rifles, 214, 
215. 

Hallock. Heman, recollections of, 32. 

Hallcck, Rev. Jeremiah, 5, 11. 

Hand, Mrs. Marian, 26; letter to, 607. 

Hanwa}', James, pioneer in Kansas, 
206, 229; testimony of, 250, 257, 266, 
280; defends Brown's course, 331. 

Harper, Chancellor, quoted, 167. 

Harper's Ferry, Brown's plan to cap- 
ture, 450, 451, 539 ; warning given, 
543; origin of name, 550; described 
by Jefferson, 551; in Brown's pos- 
session, 554, 558 ; scenes at, 556-569. 

Harpers' Weekly, quoted, 569. 

Harris, James, testimony concerning 
Pottawatomie executions, 265. 

Hawkins, Nelson, alias John Brown, 
114, 363, 391, 435, 458. 

Hazlitt, Albert, 546, 554, 556, 615, 
625. 

Heiskell, W. A , receives Pate's agree- 
ment, 300. 

Hereford, Dr., 484. 

Herald, New York, quoted, 426, 561, 
566. 

Hickory Point, 298. 

Higginson, C. J., 384. 

Higginson, H. L.,384. 

Higginson, T. Wentworth, 96 ; letter 
from Brown and reply, 435-436; 
learns Brown's Virginia plan, 440, 
447; protests against delay, 459 ; 
confers witli Brown, 463, 404; rec- 
ords preserved by, 492, 514. 

Hildreth, Richard, 163. 

Hinsdale, widow Lucy, 10. 

Hinton, Richard J., 423-424, 472. 

Holmes, James H., 288, 391, 392, 394, 
395, 397. 

Hopkins, Rev. Abner C, letter to 
Thomas Hughes, 618. 

Hopkins, Dwight, creditor of Johiv 
Brown, 56. 



G38 



INDEX. 



Hopkins, Rev. Samuel, D.D., de- 
nounces slavery, 11. 

Hotchkiss, Wealthy, 144. 

Howe, Dr. S. G., 103; on Kansas com- 
mittee, 347; testimony before Ma- 
son's committee, 450; letter to Hugh 
Forbe.=, 459; favors postponement 
of attack, 463; withdraws support 
for a time, 490; letter to John M. 
Forbes, 493; part taken by, 514. 

Hoyt, D. S., murdered, 244," 328. 

Hoyt, George H., defends John Brown, 
575. 

Hubbard, Gilbert, business associate 
of Brown, 69. 

Hudson, David, settlement in Ohio, 
34; an Abolitionist, 34. 

Hudson, Ohio, home of Owen Brown, 
4, 7, 8; log-house at, 19; its name, 
.34. 

Hugo, Victor, letter to Brown's widow, 
120; address to American Republic, 
630; quoted, G31. 

Hull, General, at Detroit in 1812, 19. 

Hupp, Philip and Miner, 207. 

Humphrey, Heman, letter to John 
Brown, 602; Brown's reply, 603. 

Hunter, Andrew, a Virginia lawyer, 
570; his argument in court, 575; 
Brown's letter to, 584; mentioned 
by Victor Huso, 630. 

Hurd. H. B., Kansas committee-man, 
348, 352, 357, 3.58, 359, 367, 369. 

Hutchinson, Captain Philip, 207. 

Hutchinson, William, letter from, 366. 



INDIANS of Ohio, 12, 13; of Kansas, 

■*- 245, 252, 321. 

Invasion of Kansas, 172, 217, 236, 245, 

318, 332. 
Ives, Lieutenant, orders armed men to 

disperse, 274. 



JACKSON, Claiborne F., 172. 
Jacobs, Judge, 278. 

James brothers, the, 272. 

Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on Virginia, 
168; views of slavery, 169; gener- 
ous indignation, 170; prediction, 
170; bis fate if a Kansas settler in 
18.55, 179. 



Jones, Jonas, of Tabor, 400. 

Jones, Ottawa, 245; letter from, 262; 

destruction of house, 322. 
Jones, Sheriff, 209, 231, 234. 



jrAGI, J. H., 423, 409, 472, 474, 
485, 488, 519-523; at Chambtrs- 
burg, 533, 536-542; at Harper's 
Ferry, 546, .553. 

Kaiseri^ Charles, 290, 296, 301. 

Kansas, John Brown's expedition to, 
111; a skirmish ground, 160; ex- 
plored by Dutisne, part of Louisiana 
and ceded to Jefferson, 160; Emi- 
grants drawn to, 164; first elections, 
171, 172; slavery forced upon, 173, 
176, 182; Emigration of the Browns 
to, 188-203 ; hardships of pioneer 
life in, 204, 205, 222 ; settlers mur- 
dered, 21(1, 225 ; Investigating Com- 
mittee, 228; Civil war there, 236- 
246, 28.5-;i30 ; battles and their value, 
283; admitted to the Union, 287; 
Indian Missions of, 321. 

Kansas Committees, 344-374, 461-4G6. 

Kansas Regulators, the, .344; oath and 
regalia, 345; Established by Lane 
and Robinson, 346. 

Kennedy, J. R., account of Bran|pn's 
rescue, 207. 

Kennedy farm, 528, 531, 557, 507. 

Kickapoo Rangers, the, 234, 304. 

King, Rufus, opposes slavery in Mis- 
souri, 161. 

Kline, wounded at Osawatomie, 320. 

Kossuth in America, 146. 



T AFAYETTE, pistols of, 552. 

Lane, James H., General, resolu- 
tions, 183, 308 ; elected Senator, 
228; anecdotes of, 337, 345, 401; 
letters from, 401-405. 

La Salle, 160. 

Laughlin, Pat, 206. 

Lawrence, town of, public meeting, 
210; attack threatened, 211, 217; 
invasions of, 217 ; pillage of, 224 ; 
occasion of third invasion, 230; 
destruction of hotel, 235 ; of toWB, 
236; agfliu threatened. 332, 3.35, 



INDEX. 



(539 



Lawrence, Amos A., employs Brown 
as agent, 61; assists Brown, 111; 
no knowledge of Virginia plans, 
112; in Emigrant Aid Company, 
163; purchases Sharpe's rifles, 213; 
statements to Massachusetts Histor- 
ical Society, 213; a friend t<o Kan- 
sas, 214; letters from, 213, 373. 374, 
410 ; raises money to buy land, 112, 
409, 410. 
Lecompte, Judge, 231. 
Lecompton, 232 ; grand jury of, 235; 
prisoners at, 238, 310, 314, 325; ex- 
change of prisoners at, 313. 
Lee, Colonel Robert E., 555, 558 ; cap- 
tures John Brown, 560; views of, 
560. 
Legate, J. F., speech of, 232. 
Leonard, E. C, anecdotes of Brown, 

64, 67, 628. 
Letters from .John Brown 
In 1833-18.54. 
To his family, 51, 58-62, 74-79, 108, 
109-111, 134, 139-146, 148-153, 
154-159. 
To Frederick Brown, 26-27, 40-41. 
To John Brown, Jr., 45-51, 58-59, 
61-62, 72-73, 75-78, 81-86, 105, 
139-141, 143, 144-145, 150, 1-52, 
156-157. 
To his wife, Mary Brown, 68, 106, 

107, 108, 109, 132, 146, 153. 
To his father, Owen Brown, 21, 22, 

23, 24-25. 
To G. Kellogg, 56. 
To Simon Perkins, 82-83. 
To "The Ramshorn" ("Sambo's 

Mistakes"), 128-131. 
To Springfield fugitive slaves 

(" Words of Advice "), 124-126. 
To Henrv Thompson, 107, 108, 109, 
110, 154, 168. 

In 1855-1856. 
To his family, 191-193, 199-202, 
203-205, 217-221, 222-223, 228, 
236-241, 317-320. 
To his wife, Mary, 193. 
To N. Y. Tribune, 379, 481, 508. 
To E. B. Whitman, 241, 301. 

In 1857-18.58. 
To S. L. Adair, 370, .388. 
To his family, 406, 410-411, 414-415, 
440-441, 45.3-4.j6, 478-480. 



Letters from John Brown 
To John Brown, Jr., 432-433, 4-37- 

438, 447, 450, 452 (extract). 
To his wife, Mary, 374, 388, 442-443. 
To John E. Cook, 423. 
To J. T. Cox, 521. 
To H. Forbes, 389, 432. 
To J. H. Lane, 401-402. 
To Theodore Parker, 422, 434-435, 

447-449, 508. 
To H. N. Rust, 376-377. 
To F. B. Sanborn, 113, 398-401, 

408-409, 412-414, 443-445, 456- 

457, 474, 477. 
To George L. Stearns, 368, 406, 408- 

410, 411-412, 511. 
To Eli Thayer, 382. 
To Augustus Wattles, 391, 393. 
To E. B. Whitman, 402-403. 

In 1859. 
To George Adams, 588-589. 
To J. Q. Anderson, 611-612. 
To E. B., 582. 
To his family, 489-490, 525-526, 

530-532, 5.50, 579-580, 585-586, 

596-597, 61.3-615, 616 (his will). 
To John Brown, Jr., 535-5.36. 
To his wife, Mary, 591-593, 595-596, 

605-606, 617. 
To his sisters, 607-608. 
To Mrs. L. M. Child, 580. 
To friends in New England, 583. 
To James Foreman, 615. 
To Mr. Gaston, at Tabor, 488. 
'Jo Mrs. Mary Gale, 615. 
To G. H. Hoyt, 609. 
To Rev. Heman Humphrey, 603. 
To Rev. Luther Humphrey, 594. 
To T. Hvatt, 606. 
To J. H. Kagi, 522-523, 526, 532- 

533, 536-538. 
To Rev. Mr. McFarland, 598. 
To Rev. A. M. Milligan, 610. 
To T. B. Musgrave, 593. 
To Thomas Russell, 578. 
To Samuel E. Sewall, 612. 
To Mrs. R. B. Spring, 587, 596, 

599. 
To Mrs. Stearns, 610. 
To Miss Msiry L. Sterns, 607. 
To I). R. Tilden, 609. 
To Rev. H. L. Vaill, .589. 
To Dr. T. H. Webb, 612. 



640 



INDEX. 



Letters to John Brown 

In 1855-1856. 
P'roni S. L. Adair, 322. 
From C. H. Branscomb, 343. 
From the Bro\vn family in Kansas, 

194-198. 
From John Brown, Jr., 310-311, 

325, 330. 
From Owen Brown, Sr., 19-20. 
From J. R. Giddings, 224. 
From Charles Robinson, 329, 330- 

3-31. 
From Gerrit Smith, 364. 
From H. Stratton, 308. 
From Horace White, 342. 
From H. H. Williams, 364. 
From W. F. M. Arny, 362. 

In 18')7-1858. 
From S. L. Adair, 415. 
From Allen & Wheelock, 383. 
From Charles Blair, 378. 
From J. Bryant, 390. 
From S. P." Chase, 363. 
From Frederick Douglass, 443. 
From C. J. Higginson, 384. 
From James H. Holmes, 391-393, 

395-396. 
From James H. Lane, 401-402, 

405. 
From Amos A. Lawrence, 373-374. 
From Massachusetts Kansas Com- 
mittee, 360-362, 367-368, 384- 

385, 461-462. 
From William A. Phillips, 397. 
From Richard Realf, .398. 
From George L. Stearns, 406-407, 

409. 
From Eli Thayer, 380, 381, 383. 
From Ruth Thompson, 441-442. 
From Augustus Wattles, 394, 395. 
From E. B. Whitman, 396-397, 403- 

404. 
From H. H. Williams, 368. 

In 1859. 
From E. B. (a Quaker lady), 581. 
From John Brown, Jr., 534. 
From Martin F. Conway, 484. 
From INIrs. E. A. Gloucester, 538. 
From Dr. Samuel G. Howe, 534. 
From Rev. Henian Humphrev, 602, 

603. 
From F. B. Sanborn, 534, 535. 
From Gerrit Smith, 364, 524. 



Letters to other persons. 
In 1829-1854. 

From Salmon Brown to Owen 
Brown, Sr., 27-30. 

From Levi Burnell to Owen Brown, 
135. 

In 1855-1856. 

From Cyrus Adams to — Adams, 
327. 

From John Brown, Jr., to Jason 
Brown, 311-314. 

From Owen Brown to Mrs. John 
Brown, 315; from Watson Brown, 
341. 

From Amos A. Lawrence to James 
B. Abbott, 213. 

From Massachusetts Kansas Com- 
mittee to J. "W. Grimes, 355 ; to 
Edward Clark, .368-369; to Henry 
B. Hurd, 357, 358; to H. H. Van 
Dyck, 356; to E. B. Whitman, 
357. 

From J. C. Palmer to Dr. Webb, 216. 

From J. D. Webster to J. P. Root, 
341. 

From Daniel Woodson to Gen. 
Eastin, 216. 

In 1857-1858. 

From John Brown, Jr., to Jason, 105. 

From T. W. Higginson to F. B. 
Sanborn (extract), 492. 

From S. G. Howe to Henry WiKon, 
462. 

From Massachusetts Kansas Com- 
mittee to H. B. Hurd, 3'.8. 

From F. B. Sanborn to Hugh Forbes, 
424-430: to T. Parker, 428; to 
T. W. Higginson, 457-458: to H. 
B. Hurd, 358; to G. L. Stearns, 
113. 

From Gerrit Smith to F. B. San- 
born, 458, 466. 

From G. L. Stearns to F. B. San- 
born, 515. 

In 1859 and later. 

From J. G. Anderson to J. Q. An- 
derson, 545. 

From John Bro^vn, Jr., to J. H. 
Kagi, 547, 548. 

From Oliver Brown to his family, 
547. 

From Salmon Brown to J. Redpath, 
261. 



INDEX. 



641 



Letters to other persons, 

From Watson Brown to his wife, 
549. 

From S.G.Howe to Hugh Forbes, 459. 

From S. G. Howe to John M. Forbes, 
493. 

From Theodore Parker to K. W. 
Emerson, 513. 

From Theodore Pariter to Thomas 
Russell, 512. 

From Edwin Morton to F. B. San- 
born, 437, 467. 

From F. B. Sanhoru to T. W. Hig- 
ginson (extract), 492-493, 524, 525. 

From Gerrit Smith to F. B. San- 
born, 483. 

From G. L. Stearns to Higginson,520. 

From H. D. Thoreau to Harrison 
Blake, .506. 

From Victor Hugo to Mrs. John 
Brown (1874), 120. 

From Gerrit Smith to F. B. San- 
born, 561. 

From Mrs. Marj- E. Stearns to F. B. 
Sanborn, 509-511. 

From H. Stratton to F. B. Sanborn, 
.308. 

From C. W. Tayleure to John 
Brown, Jr., 611. 
Lej'biirn, John, 560. 
Lincoln, Ab'-aham, in Kansas, 183; 

compared with Brown, 185, 518; in- 
terest in Kansas, 347. 
Louisiana, cession of, 161. 
Lowry, Grosvenor P., 211 ; testimony 

of, "346. 
Lusk, Dianthe, birth, 33 ; marriage, 

34; children of, 35; death, 36; an- 
cestry. 36. 
Lusk, Milton, recollections of, 33; 

leaves his church, 53 ; a spiritualist, 

53; a colonizationist at Hudson, 147; 

excommunicated. 148. 
Lykins (now Miami) county, 172. 



jilACDON'ALD, John (ahorse), 69. 
Malmesbury, Lord, Diary quoted, 
343. 

Manifest Destiny, a political watch- 
word, 163. 

Marais des Cygnes, 251, 276 ; origin of 
name, 324. 



41 



Marshall, Chief-Justice, letters of, 147, 
148. 

Martineau, Harriet, connection with 
Oberlin College, 138. 

Mason, Senator, Fugitive Slave Bill of, 
123 ; interview with Brown, 562; his 
investigating committee, 450, 527. 

Massachusetts, disgrace of its courts, 
123 ; subscriptions to Kansas colo- 
nists, 349, 354; Kansas Committees, 
349, 350, 355-368, 368-373; their 
purpose, 386 ; their relation to 
Brown's V^irginia foray, 461-466. 

Maryland, Brown in, 527. 

McGee, Uncle Jimmy, 232. 

Medal, gold, given to Brown's widow, 
120. 

Medford, visit of Brown to, 17. 

Meeker, Rev. Joi^eph, brings first 
printing press to Kansas, 321. 

Mendenhall, Richard, 228; letter 
concerning Brown, 326. 

Merriam, F. J., 546, 548. 

Miles, Peter, 3. 

Mills, Ruth, marries Owen Brown, 3 ; 
their children, 6, 7, 8 ; death of, 8. 

Mills, Dr. Lucius,sufferings in Kansas, 
242. 

Milton, quoted, 248. 578, 624. 

Jlissions, Indian, of Kansas, 321. 

Missouri Compromise, debated in 
Congress, 117 ; declares Kansas 
free soil, 161 ; remarkable declara- 
tions of J. Q. Adams and J. C. Cal- 
houn concerning, 118. 

Moffat, C. W., 425. 

Montgomery', Captain James, 325, 474, 
477; fires on U. S. dragoons, 480. 

Morgan, Shubel, alias John Brown, 
473. 

Morse, a Kansas trader, 255. 

Morton, Edwin, 429, 437, 444, 467, 
483, 524, 536. 

Musgrave, Mr., buys wool of Brown, 
68. 

Musgrave, T. B., letter from Brown, 
593. 



"^APOLEON, Louis, the coup d'etat, 

146. 
National Kansas Committee, 346, 348; 
its operations, 351; members of, 



642 



INDEX. 



352; repor. of, 859; dealings with 
Brown, 341, 348, 359, 361, 367, 412; 
criticised by Mr. Lawrence, 373. 

New England Emigrant Aid Company. 
See Emigrant Aid Company. 

Newby Dangerfield, shot, 555. 

Xoifolk, Conn., 5, 6. 

North Canaan, story of Parson Thomp- 
son and his slaves, 11. 

North Elba, Brown family at, 73, 97; 
life at, 98, 99; described by John 
Brown, Jr., 105; hardships of life 
at, 106; burials there, 3, 114 617, ()26. 

Notes for speeches by Brown, 242. 

QBERLIN COLLEGE, 133; records 
of, 134; connection with Miss 
Martineau, 138. 

Ohio, journey of Owen Brown to, 7 ; 
of John Brown, 12; Indians of, 8. 

"Old Brown's Farewell," 508; his 
"Parallels," 481. 

Oread, Mt., seat of Kansas University, 
306. 

Osage River, the, 251. 

Osawatomie, 188; location of the 
Browns, 205; Proslavery camp at, 
230; burning of, 245; description, 
251; last tight in, 314, 318; Pro- 
slavery account, 321 ; monument at, 
.323. 

Osawatomie Brown, 188, 317, 504, 558. 

Otis, Harrison Gray, opposes Mis- 
souri Compromise, 161. 

Ottawas, the, 196, 246. 

Ottawa Jones. See Jones. 

Oviatt, Captain, employs Brown, 58; 
testimony to business character of, 
67, 86 ; partner of Brown, 09. 

Owen, John, 3; marriage, 3. 

Ownership of arms carried to Virginia, 
349, 350, 368, 384, 413, 464. 



pALMYRA, robbed, 238; camp at, 
258; battle at, 299, 300. 

Paola, 278, 279, 301, 309. 

Parentage of Brown, 3. 

Parker, Mr., wounded by Border Ruf- 
fians, 245. 

Parker, Rev. Theodore, first meets 
Brown, 16; corresponds about him, 



428, 459, 513, 515, 517 ; letters from 
Brown, 434, 438, 447, 448; death, 
492; a friend to Brown, 511; letter 
to Emerson from Rome, 513; letter 
to F. Jackson, 517. 

Parsons, Luke F., statement respecting 
Kansas, 285; re.-pecting book, 471.' 

Pate, Captain, his capture described 
by Brown, 239; by Owen Brown, 
2ii8; his agreement with Brown, 
240, 300; release of, 304; his con- 
duct, 301, 304. 

Perkins and Brown, 64 ; settlement of 
affairs, 79, 88, 155, 157. 

Phillips, W. A., 305, 393, 397. 

Phillips, Wendell, 187, 514, 622. 

Pierce, Franklin, president in 1856, 
106, 176, 236, 343. 

Pilgrimage to Kansas, 189, 191, 202. 

Pioneer instinct of the Brown family, 
90, 115. 

Pinckney, Charles, 161. 

Pinkney, William, 161. 

Plainlield, John Brown at school at, 
31, 32. 

Plymouth Plantations, History of, 2. 

Po"tt:iwatomie Creek, 188. 251, 260. 

Pottawatomie Indians, 196. 

Pottawatomie executions, 171, 227, 
247, 248; scene of, 251; facts of, 
257, 259, 262, 265, 269, 271 ; effect 
in Ottawa camp, 273; on the Bor- 
der Ruffians, 274, 278, 280; prosla- 
very account of, 331, 332. 

QUETELET. quoted, 468. 
Quivira, the land of, 160. 
Quincy, Josiah, letter to Judge Hoitr, 
249.' 

■RANDOLPH, Penn, 42. 

Realf, Richard, reports Brown's 
plan, 1.36; sent to Brown as mes- 
senger, 396; letter to Brown, 470. 

Redpath. James, biographer of Brown, 
18; mistaken, 261; describes Prairie 
City, 292; meets Brown, 294, 340, 
471; report of New York meeting, 
353. 

Reeder, Governor Andrew H., 171; re- 
moved bj' Pierce, 176; declarations 
of, 183; visited by Brown, 387. 



INDEX. 



643 



Reid, General J. W., leads attack on 
Osawatomie, 321; on Lawrence, 335. 

Riclifield, Brown a shepherd at, 58. 

Richmond, Brown at, 90. 

Rively Pierce, testimony of, 226. 

Robinson, Charles, letters of, 171, 
212, 329, 330; agent of Emigrant 
Aid Company, 212; defends Brown's 
share in Pottawatomie executions, 
1-71, 281; speech at Osawatomie, 
280, 324; compares Brown to Clirist, 
325 ; calls Brown a robber and mur- 
derer, 490. 

Robinson. Mrs. Charles, quoted from, 
214: -concerning Black .Jack, 303. 

clockville. Woollen Co. of, 55. 

jRoot, Sally, marries Owen Brown, 9; 
their children and death, 9, 10. 

'Russell, Thomas, 509, 512; interview 
with Brown in prison, 624. 

Uussell, Major, 560. 

llusseil, William H., a trustee under 
Brown's will of 1857, 385; reassures 
Brown, 476. 

Uust, H N., orders pikes, -376; letters 
to and from Brown, 375, 377. 



UACRAMENTO, the old cannon, 309. 
Sambo's mistakes, 128. 

Manborn, F. B., sonnets to John Brown 
by, ix; first meets Brown, 17; Kan- 
sas Committees, member of, 347; 
action taken by, 348, 355, 368; 
introduces Brown to Legislative 
Committee, 370; corresponds with 
Brown, 113, 349, 381, 393, 408, 412, 
435, 440, 443, 456, 474, 520, 534, 
548; Virginia plan disclosed to, 418, 
450; letter to Forbes. 429; at Gerrit 
Smith's, 112, 438, 561 ; corresponds 
with Smith about Brown's Virginia 
plans, 458, 406, 483, 514, 524, 5-35, 
548; advocates delay, 460; in secret 
committee, 463. 492, 514, 520, 52-3- 
525; letter to R. W. Emerson, 623. 

Schamyl, compared with Brown, 136. 

Scott, General, 560. 

Sears, Rev. EdmondH., poem of, 629. 

Shannon, Governor. 210; proclamation 
of, 216; Lawrence treaty, 219; re- 
called, 284; apprehends failure, 303, 
304; superseded, 328. 



Sharpe's Rifles, purchased by Emi- 
grant Aid Company, 213, 214, 215; 
by Dr. Cabot for Massacluisetts 
Committee, 349, 358. 

Shawnee .Mission, 176, 210. 

Shermans, the, 2-30, 253; execution of 
William, 265; his vile character, 
255; death of Henry, 331; he guides 
the ruffians to Jones's house, 323. 

Shore, Captain, 2-39, 240, 297; at Pal- 
myra, 302. 

Slaveiy, American, its nature, 167; 
attempts to establish it in Kansas, 
161, 176-184. 

Smith, Mrs. A. C, corresponds with 
Sanborn, 514. 

Smith, Gerrit, offers lands, 96, 101; 
interview with Brown, 97 ; donation 
by, 194; generosity to Kansas colo- 
nists, 353; impression of Forbes, 
430; receives Brown and friends, 
438, 467; Virginia ])lan revealed to, 
452 ; chairman of secret committee, 
463; a friend to Blown, 514, 523; 
gives public warning, 544; letters 
concerning Brown, 364, 385, 458, 
466, 483, 514, 524, 536, 561. 

Smith, Isaac, alias John Brown, 539. 

Smith, James, alius John Brown, 
.393. 

Socrates, compared with Brown, 631. 

Southampton Massacre, the, 34. 

Sparks, Stephen, rescue, 225; testi- 
mony of wife, 226, 227. 

Speer, John and Joseph, 215 ; indict- 
ment of, 232. 

Spring, Mrs. Marcus, letters of Brown 
to, 591, 599; last words to, 621. 

Spring, Professor, describes " Dutch 
Henry's Crossing," 252. 

Springdale, Iowa, 433, 479. 

Springfield, Mass., removal of Brown 
to, 63; his life in, 64; branch of 
Gileadite League, 124; resolutions 
of same, 126. 

Spurs, battle of, 486. 

Stearns, Mr. George Luther, hospital- 
ities to Brown, 17, 18; aid given by, 
111; chairman of Massachusetts 
Kansas Committee, 349, 350, 384, 
385; generosity of, 406, 464, 493; 
owns the arms for Virginia, 461, 
462 ; a practical idealist, .507 ; letters 



644 



INDEX. 



to and from Brown, 11-2, 368, -106, 
408, 409, 410, 411. 

Stearns, Mrs. Marj' E., invites Brown 
to Medford, 1/'; recognizes Brown's 
character, 507; letter from, 509; 
sends Mr. Brackett to Charlestown, 
515; Brown's letters to, 509, 610. 

Stearns, Harry, letter from Brown, 
12; anecdote of, 17. 

Stephens, alias Whipple, 485, 565: 
farewell to Brown, 625. 

Stewart, Charles, Captain, 194, 439. 

Stuart, J. E. B., 5.58, 559, 611. 

Stratton, H., 308. 

Stringfellow, J. II., Letter to " Moiit- 
gomery Advertiser," 165; speeches 
of, 165, 172; letter, 176; in the at- 
tack on Lawrence, 325. 

Stubs, The, 285, 296, 342. 

Sumner, Charles, welcomes Kossuth, 
146; views of, Jlissouri Compromise, 
161 ; speech in Senate, 249 ; corre- 
spondence with Hugh Forbes, etc., 
427, 430. 

Sumner, Colonel, 239, 303, 305. 

Surveyor, Brown disguised as a, 230. 



'fABOR, Brown at, 488. 

Tacitus quoted, v. 
Tayleure, C. W., letter to John Brown, 

jr., 611. 
Thacher, T. Dwight, 186, 499. 
Thayer, Eli, 163; letters, 212, .380, 

381 ; Manager of Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, 384. 
Thomas, Thomas, 133, 194. 
Thomson, Rev. Mr., and his slaves, 

11. 
Thompson, Dauphin, 530, 546, 549, 

552, 579, 596. 
Thomj)son, Henry, marries Ruth 

Brown, 77; in Kansas, 239, 241, 

293, 313, 322; wounded, 244, 291, 

301. 
Thompson, Ruth. See Ruth Brown. 
Thompson, William, in Nebraska, 317, 

336 ; capture of, 555. 
Thoreau, verdict on .John Brown, 119, 

185, 503, 506; diaries quoted, 502; 

letter from, 506. 
Titus, Colonel, shot, 287; attack on, 

311, 312. 



Tombstone of Captain Brovyn, 3, 114, 

375, 376. 
Topeka, scenes near, 307, 485. 
Townsley, James, discloses details of 

Pottawatomie executions, 262, 264, 

270, 275. 
Trial of Brown at Charlestown, 572- 

576. 
Tribune, New York, Brown's letters 

to, 379, 481 ; fund for Kansas colo- 

Dists, 353; quoted, 426. 
Tubman, Harriet, 452, 468. 
Turner, Nat, his insurrection, 34. 



"UNCLE SAM'S HOUNDS" on 

Brown's track, 382, 511. 
United States courts, 167, 186, 212, 229, 

231, 235. 
United States troops in Kansas, 224, 

231, 239, 274, 276, 279, 284, 293, 

301, 305, 307, 312, 316, 333, 340, 

480. 
Unseld, J. C, 527. 
Updegraff, Dr., 286; wounded, 319. 



yALLANDIGHAM, C. L., interview 
with John Brown, 563. 

Van Dyck, H. H., letter to, 356. 

Virginia foray, 519. 

Virginia plan disclosed, 418, 452, 453. 

Virginia punished for slavery, 170, 
622. 

Virginia savages, 618, 622. 

Virginia soldiers, 625. 

Virginia slavery defended by Gen. 
Lee, 560; denounced by Jefferson, 
169; by John Brown, 563; by Phil- 
lips, 622; by Victor Hugo, 630. 

Virginia statesmen oppose slaverv, 
162, 169. 



"^AKEFIELD, John A., mobbed, 
173 ; liouse burned, 175. 

Wakarusa War, 217-221. 

Walker, Captain, cruelty to captives, 
279. 

Walker, R. J., 388, .395, 405, 416. 

Walker, Samuel, 287; testimony of, 
280, 336; anecdotes by, 337; dep- 
uty marshal, 3.39. 



INDEX. 



645 



Washington, Colonel Lewis W., 551 ; 

arrested bv Brown, 554. 
Washington, George, 4, 550, 554, 630. 
Washington, jNIadison, 133. 
Watson, Henry, 539. 
Wattles, Augustus, 391; on politics, 

393, 394. 
Watts, Isaac, quoted, 180. 
Webb, Dr. T. H., 216; letter from 

Brown, 612. 
Webster, Daniel, supports Fugitive 

Slave Bill, 123. 
Webster, General J. D., letter from, 

341. 
Western Reserve, settlement of Owen 

Brown, 4. 
Whedon, Benjamin, 7. 
Whipple, (dias Stephens, 486. 
White, Horace, letters from, 341, 354, 

360, 362; testimony as to rifles, 342; 

report of, 352; confidence in Brown, 

361. 
White, Martin, arrests Jason Brown, 

277; kills Frederick Brown, 320. 
Whitfield, Proslavery candidate, 171. 
Whitman, Edmund B., 241, 301, 330, 

352, 366, 370, 394, 398, 402, 415, 521, 

524; correspondence of, 357, 396, 

403, 404. 



Wiener, T., warehouse burned, 2-30, 
254; account of Pottawatomie execu- 
tions, 272; at Black Jack, 290, 293. 

Wilder, D. W., historian of Kansas, 
quoted, 183, 207, 629. 

Wilkes, Warren, 165. 

Wilkinson, Allen, 230; killed at Pot- 
tawatomie, 266; testimony of wife, 
2ii7; antecedents, 271. 

Williams, H. H., 325; letter to Brown, 
3G4. 

Wills of J"hn Brown, 385, 616. 

Wilson, Henry, 460, 466, 515; letters 
from Dr. Howe, 462. 

Winkley, Rev. J. W., 314. 

Winter of 1778, hardships of, 4. 

Wise, Governor of Virginia, 559; in- 
terview with Brown, 569, 570; tes- 
timony as to Brown, 571; mentioned 
by Brown, 572, 584, 605 ; otherwise 
mentioned, 572, 621, 623. 

Wood, Samuel N., indictment of, 232. 

Woodson, Daniel, 216, 284, 328. 

Wright, Captain, 333. 



VOUNG, Colonel, declarations of, 

172. 
Youth of John Brown, 31-35. 



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